Selection Committee Members Research Articles

The Employment Interview: The Role of Sex Stereotypes in the Evaluation of Male and Female Job Applicants in the Netherlands1

This field study focused on the influence of sex stereotypes in the evaluation of male (N=38) and female (N=21) job applicants in the Netherlands. The employee selection process for higher‐level technical and academic jobs in real life situations was studied, with special attention to the assessment of applicants by members of selection committees. It was demonstrated that, according to the job interviewers, the ideal applicant had more masculine than feminine traits. Males and females were regarded as having the same qualifications for the job, but because male applicants were assessed as having more masculine characteristics and female applicants more feminine characteristics, the male applicants were accepted more often. The job interviewers acted according to a fit model: The applicant most similar in traits to the ideal applicant was hired for each job.

Using Microcomputers to Ensure Proper Representation in Committees: A Tutorial on Integer Programming

Despite the popularity of the committee as a decision-making authority in many organizations, the social science literature offers few objective means for selecting committee members. This paper shows how Integer Programming, using a microcomputer, can be useful to both practicing managers and researchers in the social sciences. The theory is first developed. Then a familiar example, one analogous to forming a committee in many settings, is used to illustrate the procedure. Other implications and advantages of the procedure are discussed. Keywords: committees, group selection, m-teger programming, microcomputers.

Improving the Selection of Basal Reading Programs: A Report of the Textbook Adoption Guidelines Project

Commercially developed basal reading programs are used in most elementary school classrooms in this country. Yet, often neither the publishers developing these programs nor the members of state and local textbook adoption committees selecting programs are able to take advantage of the best and most up-to-date knowledge about the reading process and reading instruction. The development and piloting of A Guide to Selecting Basal Reading Programs is a major effort to make such knowledge available to publishers and members of adoption committees. The Guide presents current information about research and practice in reading and provides guidelines for evaluating basal reading programs. Case studies of 4 textbook adoption committees that piloted the Guide are presented. In general, these committees found the Guide contributed to a more informed selection process and committee members focused more attention on substantive issues associated with the quality of instruction and content and less attention on superficial aspects of programs and political considerations. In particular, 4 factors contributed to the successful use of the Guide: committee leadership, committee enthusiasm, adequate time to use the materials, and in-service support from a knowledgeable source. The role of this project in the larger endeavor to improve reading instruction in our elementary schools is addressed.

The Evaluation and Selection of Basal Readers

Basal readers dominate reading instruction in most classrooms across the country. In fact, considering the central role of basal readers in the classroom, the selection of a basal reader represents the selection of a reading curriculum in most American schools. And, because textbook companies publish what school districts and states choose to buy, textbook selection directly influences the quality of basal readers. Operating properly, textbook selection should contribute to the improvement of reading instruction. However, major weaknesses are evident in the process of basal reader selection by states and school districts: Decisions on basal reader selection are often based on peripheral or insignificant criteria; members of selection committees frequently are handicapped by lack of time, training, and direction; selection decisions often do not reflect philosophies about the teaching of reading; publishers and influential committee members often wield disproportionate power to influence decisions; and, st...

Analysis of selection criteria for medical residents: Differences between primary care and traditional pathway committees

A self-administered questionnaire was given to faculty members of resident selection committees for traditional and primary care medical residencies at one institution. Results from both committees revealed that applicant performance in medicine clerkships and communication from the applicant's department of medicine faculty, especially the chairman, were key criteria in evaluating the strength of each applicant. Negative personal characteristics were important in determining undesirable resident candidates. Primary care program selectors put more emphasis on the applicant's personal goals, skills, and interests, especially career plans in general internal medicine, than did their traditional program counterparts. Other differences included the tendency of traditional program committee members to value collegial communications and the perceived quality of the applicant's medical school more than the primary care members did.

1982: Fourteenth Annual NCFR Film Awards Competition

The 1982 Film Awards Competition was hosted by the NCFR central office in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Screenings were conducted the week of April 12-16, and 125 individuals from various professional organizations and universities volunteered their time and expertise to participate as selection committee members. The ongoing intent of the Family Life Film Awards is to recognize and endorse quality productions which enhance the study of the family, to promote the effective use of film resources, and to encourage high standards in cinematic endeavor. An interpreter for the deaf was provided during the screening of the entry category Special Needs/Social Services, one of the eleven categories included in this year's event. The remaining categories included Human Development Throughout the Family Life Cycle, Parenting, Non-traditional Family Systems, Family Process and Intrafamilial Communication, Sexuality and Sex Role Development, Marital Issues, Human Reproduction/Family Planning, Family Stress, Contemporary Issues and Their Impact on Family Life, and a Miscellaneous Related Topics category. The criteria for the selection of award winners were established as follows: The integrity and relevance of the content, the aesthetic quality of the production and its appeal to various audiences, and the effectiveness of content delivery. Each film received an overall numerical rating from each evaluator on the basis of a scale of 1-12. Any entry receiving a

Rating Your Rhetoric Text

What do you expect from your rhetoric text? How would your rating of it compare with the ratings of other teachers? What criteria will you or your department use in determining next year's freshman texts? For some time, we teachers of have lacked common standards by which to measure our composition texts. As a consequence, members of textbook selection committees often find themselves talking about different parts of the proverbial elephant, each teacher arguing for a different text, for book x has an excellent persuasion chapter, and book y uses plentiful examples, and book z contains just about everything you could want in its 680 pages. Is it any wonder that, as one reviewer put it, writing texts multiply like rabbits?1

New committee appointments

Some revisions in the committee structure have been made this term in an effort to better serve member needs. On the President's Page this month, Arthur Maxwell explains this reorganization and discusses the method of selecting committee members. Listed below are the committees for which appointments have been made, their charges, and their members.

Remote Sensing for Agricultural Purposes

The potential applications of remote sensing from aircraft in agriculture are many. Suggested uses include determination of crop acreages, surveys of land use, soil surveys, rangeland surveys, and determination of crop condition. The latter has been of special interest particularly with respect to crop damage from drought, salinity and plant pests. Quantitative measures of incidence and severity of plant diseases and other crop pests require high expenditures of time by trained personnel. Consequently, most estimates of crop losses from plant pests in major production regions of the United States and other countries are derived from inadequate surveys. In the late 1950's, U.S. industry members of the Agricultural Research Institute asked the Agricultural Board of the National Academy of SciencesNational Research Council to study methods by which the accuracy of such information could be improved. This request was guided by the reports of earlier work by R. N. Colwell (1956) on the detection of wheat stem rust disease in plots of graded infection severity by use of aerial infrared photography. In 1960, a committee of the NAS-NRC was appointed. In selecting committee members, the Academy took cognizance of the advances in technology that had been recently made in radiation detectors and optical mechanical scanners as well as photographic films. Members were selected from the disciplines of physics, engineering, agriculture, and forestry. From the outset, their studies dealt with not only the photographic spectral regions but also the ultra-violet, reflective infrared, emissive infrared, and radar regions. The committee was named Remote Sensing for Agricultural Purposes and was given permission to plan the research approach and to seek support for it. Because of the complexities of assembling equipment and obtaining agricultural test areas, the committee was later given permission to participate in the early feasibility studies. The first experiment was conducted in 1964 using University of Michigan aircraft and sensing equipment over Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station farms (Holter et al., 1964). The major objective was to determine the capability of recognizing crop species by comparing energy returns from the different crops in 18 rather narrow spectral bands ranging from 0.35 to 16 /. The sensing instruments were a combination of optical mechanical scanners with appropriate filters and detectors and multiple and single lens camera systems. This combination of instruments was the best that could be put together at the time, but of course, there was no way to calibrate the energies measured in each channel. Data were recorded on film. Analyses were limited largely to comparing photographic tones of different fields with each other and with a selected standard area such as a road, pond, or grass strip common to each scene. Despite these and many other limitations, the power of such a multispectral system to differentiate crop species and soil types and to detect weedy and damaged areas within fields was indicated (Hoffer et al., 1966; Holmes & Hoffer, 1966). In 1965, the University of Michigan improved the airborne sensing system by mounting all equipment in a single plane, and devising a single-aperture, 12-channel scanner with internal calibration. The channels were selected

I.R.E. Special Committee on Obtaining Membership Talents and Volunteer Service

During the past year, a special committee was appointed by the Executive Committee of the Institute for the purpose of obtaining membership talents and volunteer service to aid in broadening participation in various Institute activities. The immediate aim of this committee was to set up means of obtaining lists of qualified individuals from which members could be selected for appointment to committees or to other assignments. In exploring the possible approaches for accomplishing this aim, a number of conclusions were reached and recommendations have been made to the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors. Some of these recommendations were of a general nature while others were more specific in their relation to the procedures for selecting committee members and administering committee activities. Among the specific recommendations was the one to establish in each Section a Section Personnel Committee whose function it would be to advise the National Office of personnel whom it deemed capable of and interested in serving on various committees of the Institute. This local committee would also recommend members for transfer from Associate to higher grades and assist such members in making transfers by arranging for sponsors and by securing and transmitting relevant information to the Admissions Committee.