A HISTORY OF JOB ANALYSIS

1
A HISTORY OF JOB ANALYSIS

• Jimmy L. Mitchell, Ph.D., Director
• Institute for Job Occupational Analysis

2
Job Analysis

• the history of job analysis is essentially a
  history of individuals undertaking to satisfy
  certain needs for information about jobs in order
  to deal with practical personnel problems.
• (E. Primoff S. Fine, 1988, p. 14)

3
Job Analysis

• Initially, the methods used to obtain the
  information appear to have been readily available
  observation, interviewing techniques with
  knowledgeable people, or simply deduction based
  on assumed knowledge. Only in the past century
  with the introduction of scientific management,
  has there been a focus on the methodologies of
  fact gathering as such.
• (Primoff Fine, 1988, 14)

4
Government Managers Executives

• CHINA - 1115 B.C. - The Imperial Court
• Problem Selection Retention of
• All Government Officials

5
Six Factor Model

• Writing
• Arithmetic
• Music
• Archery
• Horsemanship
• Ceremonies and Rites
• P.H. DuBois, 1970
• A History of Psychological Testing

6
French Indochina 1820s

• Colonial Administration
• Selection Retention Problems
• Influence of Chinese culture in Indochina
• Use of obvious relevant tests and interview
  questions

7
France

• 1780 - 1830s
• Encyclopedia of Occupations
• Bureau Exams
• Basic qualification for civil service
• Administered annually
• System continues to this day...

8
United Kingdom

• 1840 - 1845 under Queen Victoria
• New Colonial Period
• Need for more qualified personnel
• Administration in world wide colonies
• Colonial Service Exams
• Prerequisite for appointment

9
United States

• 1860 - 1900 U.S. Civil Service Reform
• Lincoln - inefficient and wasteful results of
  political appointments
• Lessons of the Civil War
• Civil Service Reform League
• Exams to measure abilities skills relevant to
  the job vice academic prowess
• Info from supervisors, observation, letters

10
1890 - 1915

• F. W. Taylor - Scientific Management
• Hugo Munsterberg - Harvard
• father of industrial Psychology
• job analysis critical to define tests
• invented validitystudy
• published first Industrial Psychology text
• Frank Lillian Gilbreth
• Industrial Engineering - time motion studies

11
World War I

• Need for mobilization
• Committee on classification
• Group of imminent psychologists
• Headed by W.D. Scott W.V. Bingham
• Need to improve Army placements
• Outcomes (by the end of the war)
• Army Alpha and Army Beta tests

12
WWI Training

• Allen, The Instructor, The Man, The Job
• published in 1919
• Trade Analysis Method
• Lists of activities performed in a trade (job)
• Derived from Supervisors and Workers
• Secure facts useful in preparing training
• Used to develop materials and courses

13
U. S. Civil Service Commission

• 1919 report USCSC Chief Examiner
• Impact of scientific management
• it has at least one good result in forcing
  employers of labor, especially the larger
  corporations, to consider methods of employment,
  to make job analyses, and to ascertain as closely
  as possible the ultimate cost of their method or
  lack of method of employment.

14
Walter Dill Scott, 1920

• Personnel Management
• with R.C. Clothier (5 editions by 1954)
• Recommended an integrated personnel system for
  military
• specifications for each occupation
• cross reference of military civilian jobs
• Objectives
• Match people and jobs
• Provide for individual development

15
1920s

• The Scott Company, Chicago
• apply job analysis technology in civilian work
• trade tests, selection systems
• Civil Service Commission - 1922 study
• R.C. Clothier (Scott Company VP)
• Study of 1200 civilian employees at McCook Field,
  Dayton, Ohio
• Define Classifications (Duties, Requirements)
• Identify career progression paths (grades)

16
1930s

• Social Science Research Council
• Committee on Unemployment
• Sought Common Denominators of Jobs
• Develop Job Specifications
• National Research Council
• Apply Job Analysis to remediate unemployment
• List of Job Competencies
• Job Psychograph (Morris Viteles, U. Penn)

17
U.S. Employment Service

• Technical Advisory Committee (FDR 1934)
• Occupational Research Program for USES
• Carrol Shartle, Head
• Classification of Occupations
• Worker Characeristics - Occ. Requirements
• Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)
• Job Analysis as basis for manpower planning
• E.J. McCormick, Sid Fine, Ernest Primoff, et al

18
USES - ORP

• Adapted Viteless Job Psychograph approach
• List of 45 worker characteristics
• 1 to 5 rating scale -gt 3 categories
• Attempt to gather info on all types of
  occupations
• Without theoretical structure of requirements

19
USES - Example Characteristics

• 1. Work rapidly for long periods
• 2. Strength of hands
• 10. Eye-hand coordination
• 16. Keenness of vision
• 27. Intelligence
• 28. Adaptability
• 29. Ability to make decisions

20
Characteristics (cont)

• 30. Ability to plan
• 31. Initiative
• 34. Oral expression
• 36. Tact in dealing with people
• 40. Emotional stability
• 41. Work under hazardous conditions
• 45. Ability to meet deal with public

21
USES - DOT

• Common taxonomy of occupations
• Classifications, requirements
• Standard set of data on qualifications
• For use by state employment services
• Identification of available positions
• Easy transmittal of information
• Assist relocation of workers to where the jobs
  are

22
Outcomes

• Useful in job placement/relocations
• Coding of occupational titles
• Failed to reveal natural structure of occupations
  based on data
• Lack of a theoretical plan was fatal to
  scientific objectives
• In practice, served immediate needs

23
Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)

• Finally published in 1939
• Occupational groupings coded (1-9)
• Influenced by census code system
• the DOT became the basic source of information
  for facilitating World War II recruiting and was
  referred to as the Book That Went To War.
• Primoff Fine, 1988, p. 21

24
World War II

• Engineering Psychology
• Selection Training
• Equipment/Systems Design
• Operator Procedures - Training
• Pilot Selection Program
• Army Air Force - San Antonio, Texas
• Aptitude/Abilities Testing
• Link Trainer - Spatial Orientation

25
Department of Defense
1947

• JCS Memo, August 1949
• Initiate a study to determine the most
  appropriate methodology and techniques of
  military job analysis and job evaluation
  determine the extent to which the unilateral
  analyses accomplished to date are valid with
  relation to methodology provide for such further
  job analysis as may be required and initiate a
  study to relate all Army, Navy, and Air Force
  jobs to a common occupational structure.

26
Secretary of Defense

• Approved such a study
• Appropriate way to know requirements
• Military must prove needs to Congress
• Such proof can be best presented by the
  Department of Defense only after job analysis of
  military jobs..
• R.R. Van Cleve, 1974

27
Korean War

• Studies begun by each service
• Different approaches
• Interupted by mobilization
• Lack of funding priority
• Projects put on hold
• Never completed

28
Post Korean Era

• Applying War Research in Civilian Life
• Major Uses - Systems
• Job Evaluation - Relative Worth of Jobs
• Position Analysis Questionnaire - DOT
• Functional Job Analysis - Sidney Fine
• Job Element Approach - Civil Service/OPM
• Critical Incidents Analysis - Flanagan
• Comprehensive Occupational Data Analysis Programs
  (CODAP) - Ray Christal

29
Task Based Approach

• AF Occupational Research Project (1957)
• Task Inventory approach (Morsh, 1964)
• Comprehensive Occupational Data Analysis programs
  (CODAP)
• Operational Program in Training (1967)
• Continuing RD (Christal, 1974)
• Transfer of Technology (1967 - present)

30
(No Transcript)
31
(No Transcript)
32
(No Transcript)
33
Peterson, Mumford, Borman, Jeanneret,
Fleishman, 1995

• Department of Labor initiative
• Replacement for the DOT
• Define Generic Characteristics of Jobs
• 1200 items for each occupation
• New technologies
• www.onet.org

34
(No Transcript)
35
Taxonomy of Terms

• Occupation
• Job or Job Type
• Position
• Duty or groups of tasks (modules)
• Task
• Performance Steps

36
ISSUES

• Data Collection methods
• Scan form booklet vs disk vs internet
• Data Quality
• Sampling
• Reliability
• Validity
• Uses for Information

37
The Future of the World of Work