Max. Classroom Capacity: A Report From SIOP’s Education and Training Committee

Loren J. Naidoo, California State University, Northridge

Welcome readers!

For this week we continue the tradition of highlighting the purpose and important work that is being done by SIOP’s Education and Training (E&T) Committee. To that end, I’ve invited Marissa Shuffler, E&T Committee Chair, to contribute. Marissa recently assumed the E&T Chair role this spring after a year serving as the Chair in Training, and the International Subcommittee chair prior to that. Over the next two years as Chair, Marissa will continue to support ongoing efforts but also focus specific efforts aimed at better understanding the current state of E&T for I-O Psychology, and what new/emerging needs may be better addressed by the committee in the future.

For those of you unfamiliar with the overarching purpose and goals of the E&T committee, they are as follows:

1. To enhance the skills and resources of SIOP’s prospective undergraduate and graduate members
2. To improve the visibility of I-O psychology through education
3. To contribute and collaborate with E&T boards of other professional societies
4. To review, develop, and monitor teaching tools
5. To generate articles for publication in TIP
6. To generate nominations for the SIOP distinguished teaching award

The E&T committee has several current projects in pursuit of these goals. First, E&T committee members  have joined forces with SIOP’s Visibility Committee and GIT Task Force to develop a session for SIOP 2019’s Executive Board track, focused on making I-O more visible to students. This session will be held April 4, 2019 from 1:30 PM to 2:50 PM, Room Maryland B.

Second, E&T has initiated efforts to pursue the creation of SIOP-approved social media accounts specifically for SIOP E&T. This is targeted at addressing General Goal #4, as many questions and comments are posed in social media forums (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, The Grad Café) that may be best addressed by SIOP E&T. Additionally, being able to more closely connect with student members and prospective SIOP members on a regular basis is a major goal of the committee at the moment—especially student members who would like to more consistently connect with others in I-O. E&T is currently working with the appropriate SIOP channels to ensure the social media accounts are set up and branded in line with the overall SIOP branding approach.

Finally, E&T is working with SIOP to incorporate additional graduate students as formal members of E&T subcommittees. Given the overall purpose and goals of E&T, as well as the recent addition of the International and Online subcommittees, allowing more than one graduate student representative for the entire committee seems an appropriate path forward. However, E&T also recognizes that clear guidelines must be in place to ensure graduate students are assigned meaningful roles that are beneficial to them as well as the committee.

To more specifically address aspects of several of these larger goals, E&T currently has a number of subcommittees whose important work will be summarized next.

The Bridge Builders Subcommittee, chaired by Roni Reiter-Palmon, is pursuing the following goals:

1. Identify subcommittee members and provide training on Bridge Builders Initiative
2. Begin to establish processes for identifying and matching SIOP members with local groups for making connections
3. Gather materials from SIOP members’ educational talks to share with Bridge Builders

Bridge Builders have been working with the SIOP Visibility Committee over the last quarter in order to identify shared committee goals regarding outreach to the broader community. As a revamped effort, the Bridge Builders Subcommittee is currently working to expand membership in order to have the support needed to accomplish this year’s goals. There is specific interest to determine how to quickly and easily identify SIOP members who are already going into the high schools, and/or who has an interest in doing so. Options being explored include a survey and/or potentially leveraging the SIOP E&T social media accounts once they are created. In the meantime, anyone interested in helping support these exciting efforts is encouraged to contact Marissa or Roni.

The International E&T Subcommittee is chaired by Jennifer Feitosa and seeks to:

1. Continue to expand the list of graduate I-O psychology programs outside of the United States
2. Identify the barriers that non-US members encounter when joining SIOP and/or participating in SIOP events such as the annual conference
3. Facilitate information sharing among SIOP members around the world regarding E&T best practices and resources

This subcommittee has gathered members’ international contacts, knowledge, international experiences and preferences for tasking to develop an understanding of I-O E&T within and across different continents and countries. These efforts are intended to reach a deeper understanding of the differences and similarities to continue expanding the list of programs and identification of barriers. Any international I-O members are encouraged to reach out to Jennifer if they would like to provide information to inform these efforts.

The new Online E&T Subcommittee is chaired by Rebecca Grossman. Goals include:

1. Take stock of current online graduate programs to gain an understanding of the structure, content, and general design(s) for IO education/training in this format.
2. Develop a system for identifying the ways in which online IO graduate education may differ across the various online programs as well as in relation to “brick and mortar” I-O graduate programs.
3. Identify potential needs of online programs and their students/alumni and determine how SIOP might be able to offer appropriate support.

Formally initiated this year, this subcommittee has been developed to address the rapidly increasing number of students coming from online graduate programs, identifying the unique needs they may have as well as developing a better understanding of the state of I-O E&T in online settings. At SIOP 2018, Information about the effort was distributed and members were recruited at the SIOP Committee Zone, E&T meeting, and the Program Director meeting at the conference. The committee has now been fully formed to include members who have direct experience with online graduate programs. They have also identified several members who are interested in serving as SMEs if any additional feedback is needed at any point. Three specific goals have been established and submitted to the E&T committee chair.

The Guidelines Subcommittee, chaired by Christopher Wiese, seeks to:

1. Explore assessing SIOP members’ (or programs’/employers’) perceptions of the Guidelines for Education and Training at the Master’s level in I-O psychology
2. Promote the value of the Guidelines and the associated resources (e.g., Curriculum Matrix) through social media activity
3. Initiate an online repository/database of the materials needed to update the Guidelines

E&T is responsible for conducting regular reviews of the  Guidelines for Education and Training in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Following the most recent review and update of the Guidelines in 2016, this Subcommittee is now actively working to share information about this update and offer support to graduate programs seeking to determine how the Guidelines may best fit into their curricula. Part of this effort involves working to share information with program directors as to how programs may be able to best utilize resources produced as well as information about how other programs are using these resources.

The Joint Committee on Ethnic and Minority Affairs (CEMA) and E&T Subcommittee, chaired by Sabrina Volpone, has the following goals:

1. Continue working with CEMA to strengthen the formal CEMA mentoring program, particularly by  developing mechanisms that can help evolve the relationships between mentees and mentors.
2. Continue working with CEMA to grow the formal CEMA mentoring program and ensure all mentors that volunteer are utilized.
3. Partner with the Skills and Resources Subcommittee, as well as other related subcommittees (e.g, Online, International E&T), to exchange ideas that can strengthen our mentoring program goals.

This important joint effort has emerged to focus on creating a dialogue between students and faculty on the diversity of SIOP. The joint committee has managed a mentoring program for SIOP members, and is in the process of developing and implementing surveys for current mentors and mentees, as well as indivdiuals who may wish to serve as mentors or mentees in the future. Please be on the lookout for these important surveys!

Robust and Reliable Research (RRR) Subcommittee, chaired by Tine Koehler, is aiming to:

1. Create and collate reviewing resources on SIOP's website.
2. Collaborate with external stakeholders (such as CARMA) to deliver reviewing workshops.
3. Identify and share with the broader SIOP community potential reviewer incentives that will encourage good reviewing practices and/or individual investment in training to be a better reviewer.
4. Develop a TIP article on the RRR competency model in order to introduce it to the broader SIOP community.

The RRR subcommittee has emerged due to a need for better resources for continued education around robust research practices, particularly to help inform the  reviewing process. This subcommittee has already developed several resources, including tools for anyone serving as a SIOP conference reviewer. Additionally, they have also delivered a reviewer bootcamp hosted by CARMA. The recordings from the bootcamp, which featured 3 panels with 9 highly established editors and associate editors, will be made available on CARMA's youtube channel, making it accessible to the general public. Attendees of the reviewer bootcamp are able to receive a training certificate from CARMA, incentivizing participation and engagement.

The Skills and Resources Subcommittee is chaired by Cristina Rubino. This subcommittee is pursuing the following goals:

1. Continue to design and share the SIOP conference one-page guide/tips sheet for students.
2. Develop a strategic plan for networking skill-building activities and actual networking opportunities for students before and during the annual SIOP conference, including connecting with other E&T subcommittees & SIOP committees (e.g., Preconference Consortia, Visibility).
3. Partner with the Joint CEMA/E&T and other E&T Subcommittees to exchange ideas and develop initial plans regarding a broader mentoring program for students.
4. Continue to implement the internship open house official SIOP alternative session during the annual conference.

In order to help support student members in navigating the sometimes overwhelming conference program, the Skills and Resources subcommittee annually develops and disseminates a student-focused one-pager guide for the annual conference. Its third annual one-pager was received as a useful resource for students at the conference. We also delivered the “From Student to Intern: Advice and Networking with Professionals” session at SIOP together with the Placement Center committee. They have contacted the Placement Center committee to gauge interest in working together to submit another session focused on student internships. Additionally, discussions with the Joint CEMA/E&T subcommittee have begun regarding a new mentoring initiative for students.

The Teaching Tools Subcommittee, chaired by Thaddeus Rada-Bayne, has the following goals:

1. Assist the GIT Task Force by refining the boilerplate I-O textbook chapter, and other materials as requested.
2. Communicate to the SIOP community about teaching tools by building the TeachIO Facebook group to engage instructors.
3. Continue to develop the online presence of SIOP's teaching tools by transitioning teaching tools information from the old wiki to the new section on www.siop.org. Update and populate this section with more teaching materials as needed.

In order to encourage more widespread inclusion of I-O psychology into more traditional Introductory Psychology courses, the Teaching Tools subcommittee has developed a template I-O chapter for the GIT Task Force, which then moved forward with the effort to secure a creative commons license for this content. This subcommittee has also been responsible for reviewing recent editions of several Intro/General Psychology textbooks to assess their current level of I-O coverage; these results were also shared with the GIT Task Force. Work continues on identifying ways to make the TeachIO Facebook group more robust, as well as the movement of resources from the Teaching Tools Wiki to the main SIOP site.

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Thanks to Marissa Shuffler, chair of SIOP’s E&T Committee for sharing this information with us! She can be reached at mshuffl@clemson.edu.

Readers, as always, your comments, questions, and feedback are welcome! Loren.Naidoo@CSUN.edu.