Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

The application of psychological principles and methods to the study of human performance at work. A systems approach will be taken to study the interactions among the individual worker, his/her task, groups of workers, and the management structure of the organization.

COURSE DETAILS:

Schedule by Weeks and Topics:

Topics I Principles/Practices   Healthy work
II Principles/Practices   History of I/O Psychology and Ergonomics Elements of an Organization Research Methods
III Principles/Practices   Seminar /paper Topics Individuals at work Occupational Health Stress, Health and Injury

IV Occupational Health   Occupational Health Stress, Health and Injury Job satisfaction/fairness
V  Occupational Health   Motivation
V I     Job analysis techniques Review for Midterm
V II Work Design    Midterm Exam 
VIII Work Design   Designing healthy work The Psychological Standard Participative Design
IX Work Design   Personnel Assessment Selection Legal Issues   Training and Development
X Work Design   Schedules: Shift work and fatigue
XI Work Design   Physical design, satisfaction and performance Accidents, Culture, Human Error
XII     Teams and Teamwork Seminars
XI Work Design   Union-management relations Seminars
XIV     Work in the Future Review

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

At the end of the course students will be able to:

1. Explain the role of work in supporting healthy individuals, organizations and societies.
2. Identify how different organizational structures (classical, hierarchical, participatory, unionized, adhocracies) influence culture, climate, roles and norms and impact the health of workplaces.
3. Describe the requirement, limitations and methods of psychological research as they apply to understanding psychology in the workplace.
4. Summarize major trends in personnel demographics in today’s workplaces and outline the challenges and benefits for individuals, organizations and society.
5. Integrate course material to describe the mechanisms which relate psychosocial stress to physical and mental illness, injury and antisocial behavior in the workplace.
6. Describe metrics for measuring job satisfaction and motivation in the workplace, identify personal and organizations factors which influence satisfaction and motivation and apply theories to case studies to predict the impact of satisfaction and motivation on performance, absenteeism and turnover.
7. Integrate material to select job analysis techniques for identifying job design concerns and apply these to case studies.
8. Describe how personnel selection methods, training, teamwork, physical design influence psychological health in the workplace.
9. Describe the effect of shiftwork and schedule design on fatigue, circadian rhythm and health outcomes.
10. Describe “Duty to accommodate” and “Human rights” legislation as it relates to discrimination and drug and alcohol use in the workplace.
11. Identify the impact of psychological factors in accidents in the workplace. Describe “human error” and identify ways it can be reduced.
12. Apply the Canadian Psychologically Healthy Workplace Standard in identifying evidence based solutions to hazardous workplace design.
13. Communicate evidence-based knowledge about a topic of interest relevant to course material in either an oral or written format.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: