Margaret E Beier

• PhD
• Professor at Rice University

Studying collective intelligence in teams poses key challenges because individual contributions to team outcomes – such as ideas – can be abstract and difficult to measure. Although many studies have examined how team members shape collective outputs, they often utilize indirect measures of influence that focus on perceptions, interactions, and per...

Elaboration is a generative learning strategy wherein learners link prior knowledge and experiences with to-be-remembered information. It is positively related to an array of learning outcomes. However, most students do not independently use generative learning strategies. We explored whether prompting elaboration learning strategies when reading a...

Error management training (EMT) combines low structure training with error-encouraging prompts to improve training transfer (Frese et al., 1991), but error encouragement may be problematic for learners with limited attentional resources such as older learners. We examine whether the benefits of EMT can be realized without error encouragement by pro...

Nurses report that they are required to work during their scheduled breaks and generally experience extended work times and heavy workloads due to staffing shortages. This study aimed to examine changes in personal, work-related, and overall stress, as well as biological responses and fatigue experienced by nurses during three consecutive 12 h work...

We examined the relationship between age, coping, and burnout during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic with nurses in Texas (N = 376). Nurses were recruited through a professional association and snowball sampling methodology for the cross-sectional survey study. Framed in lifespan development theories, we expected that nurse age and experience wou...

Understanding why certain individuals work well (or poorly) together as a team is a key research focus in the psychological and behavioral sciences and a fundamental problem for team-based organizations. Nevertheless, we have a limited ability to predict the social and work-related dynamics that will emerge from a given combination of team members....

Objective: We explore the relationships between objective communication patterns displayed during virtual team meetings and established, qualitative measures of team member effectiveness. Background: A key component of teamwork is communication. Automated measures of objective communication patterns are becoming more feasible and offer the abili...

With an aging population and growing inequality, America is at a crossroads in its approach to work and retirement. Americans live longer and healthier lives than they did 50 years ago and they need income for more years of life. Many policymakers and academics think it is logical – almost inevitable – that Americans will work longer, delay retirem...

As populations in the US and around the world continue to age, it has become increasingly important to understand how organizations can create working conditions that attract, support, and retain workers across the lifespan. In this paper, we provide a primer on current theory and research on age in the workplace. We briefly describe lifespan theor...

The confluence of the aging population and economic conditions that require working longer necessitate a focus on how to best train and develop older workers. We report a meta‐analysis of the age and training relationship that examines training outcomes and moderators with 60 independent samples (total N = 10,003). Framed within the lifespan develo...

Murphy and DeNisi (2021) call on researchers to “examine the cumulative effects of biases in the evaluations of and decisions regarding older workers,” acknowledging that “even if age differences at any one point in time (e.g., this year’s salary raise) are small, consistent differences in the treatment of older vs. younger workers could lead to la...

Objective To examine the effect of family and perceived organizational support on the relationship between nurse adaptability and their experience with COVID-related PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms in frontline nurses working on COVID-19 units. Background Proximity to and survival of life-threatening events contribute to a diagnosis...

Making a turn while driving is simple: turn on the indicator, check for cars, then turn. Two types of information are required to perform this sequence of events: information about the items (e.g., the correct indicator), and the serial order of those items (e.g., checking before turning rather than vice-versa). Previous research has found distinct...

Researchers often focus on age-related declines rather than the development associated with lifelong learning. Focusing on working-age people (those between the ages of 18 and 70), I describe age-related changes in abilities and motivation that affect lifelong learning and research showing that older learners can and do learn when content is aligne...

University science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) summer bridge programs provide incoming STEM university students additional course work and preparation before they begin their studies. These programs are designed to reduce attrition and increase the diversity of students pursuing STEM majors and STEM career paths. A meta-analysis of 16...

This 11-year longitudinal study investigates the effects of vocational interest fit measured in college on college-to-career trajectories. Vocational interest theories suggest that vocational interest fit will affect choices and attitudes about major and job. The expectancy value model is used in the study to describe how values assigned to an outc...

Coffee and corporate social responsibility: Not as simple as revitalizing training - Volume 13 Issue 2 - Dominique Burrows, Cassandra N. Phetmisy, Ivy Watson, Ryan L. Brown, Margaret E. Beier

The current study tests an integrative model based on resource theories of retirement examining the relationships among personal resources (i.e., health and wealth), the Big Five, and subjective well-being in late life. We used a subsample (N = 2,518) of participants across two cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). All participants we...

Researchers of team behavior have long been interested in the essential components of effective teamwork. Much existing research focuses on examining correlations between team member traits, team processes, and team outcomes, such as collective intelligence or team performance. However, these approaches are insufficient for providing insight into t...

Sociability is a complex, multifactorial trait. Its importance is underscored by a multitude of negative physical and mental health effects related to loneliness and social isolation. However, current measures of sociability primarily rely on subjective recall and self-report, which have inherent weaknesses and limitations. Although objective and a...

The automation of jobs and job tasks will impact the type of work that is available and how this work gets done in the twenty-first century. At the same time, the global workforce is aging. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the confluence of these two factors—the aging labor force and the automation of job tasks. In particular, we describe...

In the USA, baby boomers are aging and choosing to remain in the workforce longer than previous generations of workers. Likewise, many countries are experiencing demographic shifts toward a more age-diverse population. Meanwhile, organizations continue to rely on teams to accomplish tasks and solve difficult problems. Together, this means that work...

In this study, individuation (individuated vs. nonindividuated) and goal type (agentic vs. communal) were manipulated to examine STEM professors’ receptiveness toward male and female prospective students’ e-mail requests for meetings. E-mails were sent to a sample of 1,879 STEM professors who had previously recommended their female students for a c...

Understanding the antecedents of retirement and health is increasingly important given the proportion of older adults in the global workforce. The current study examines the relationship between the demands-ability facet of person-job fit and retirement status and health. The sample consists of older workers and retired adults (N = 383) from the St...

To combat math underperformance among incoming STEM majors, Rice University designed a summer bridge program with National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM funding that included an intensive calculus course. Students invited to participate in the program were identified as being underprepared for STEM classes based on their standardized test scores,...

Medeiros and Griffith (2019) correctly assert, “… sexual harassment and sexual assault are issues in organizations of all kinds and need to be addressed”(p.3). Organizations should strive to create a welcoming and safe environment for all employees, and designing trainings that promote effective transfer is part of that effort. Yet, only 10% of adu...

We review papers in the special issue regarding the great debate on general and specific abilities. Papers in the special issue either provided an empirical examination of the debate using a uniform dataset or they provided a debate commentary. Themes that run through the papers and that are discussed further here are that: (1) the importance of ge...

The Cambridge Handbook of Technology and Employee Behavior - edited by Richard N. Landers February 2019

The current study examines age and non-ability traits as determinants of participation in an autonomous learning activity, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Framed within investment theories of adult intellectual development, we tested a model in which course performance and completion were predicted by age, trait complexes (constellations of pe...

Miner et al. (2018) call for industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists to examine the societal structures that influence women's underrepresentation in STEM. Here we extend their ideas and suggest that diversity in STEM would benefit from considering how people develop within the context of their environment. Educational researchers refer t...

Can engaging college students in client‐centered projects in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) coursework increase interest in STEM professions? The current study explored the effectiveness of project‐based learning (PjBL) courses on student attitudes, major choice, and career aspirations in STEM. Framed in expectancy‐value a...

The current study integrates ideas from the successful aging at work paradigm with theory and research on retirement motivation with a sample of midlife workers (N = 397; Mage = 52.34; SD = 5.87) over a 16 month period. We conceptualized successful motivational aging at work as a typology of successful, usual, and unsuccessful motivational aging at...

The workforce is aging in most developed countries, and there is a need to further extend and improve older employees’ working lives. Organizational scientists and practitioners, therefore, have become more and more interested in the topic of successful aging at work. Over the past few years, scholars have introduced theoretical frameworks that hel...

Remaining active throughout the lifespan is central to healthy aging. The current study tests a model derived from investment and resource theories that examines the extent to which activities mediate the relationship between individual differences in personality and resources on mental and physical well-being and retirement expectations. A subsamp...

Lievens and Motowidlo (2016) argue compellingly that situational judgment tests (SJTs) measure job-relevant general domain knowledge, conceptualized as implicit trait policies (ITPs). ITPs are defined as a person's knowledge about the utility of expressing certain traits. They develop through the feedback a person receives when acting in accordance...

The relationship between age and intelligence has been extensively researched and documented over the past 100 years. Depending on the definition of intelligence used, the forecast for intellectual development and growth throughout older age can be more or less optimistic. Questions about age and intelligence are best addressed by examining broad c...

Costanza and Finkelstein (2015) are correct to highlight the dangers of using generationally based stereotypes in organizations. Although popular, these stereotypes are related to a stigmatization based on group membership that can be pernicious and discriminatory. Costanza and Finkelstein are also correct in their assessment of the state of the li...

The current meta-analysis accumulates empirical findings on the phenomenon of mind-wandering, integrating and interpreting findings in light of psychological theories of cognitive resource allocation. Cognitive resource theory emphasizes both individual differences in attentional resources and task demands together to predict variance in task perfo...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the role rater and target age play in the evaluations of poorly performing workers. Intergroup attribution theory suggests that rater age predicts the attributions made for the poor performance of older workers. Design/Methodology/Approach In this study, 203 supervisors in various industries complete...

Demographics of workforce aging in the developed world have spurred research on the determinants of older worker motivation to work, motivation to retire, and motivation at work. We propose an integrative framework of later adulthood goals related to work and the motivational determinants of these goals in order to better understand goal relations....

This study investigates the effectiveness of the online Flash game Disease Defenders in producing knowledge gains for concepts related to the scientific process. Disease Defenders was specifically designed to model how the scientific process is central to a variety of disciplines and science careers. An additional question relates to the game's abi...

Prediction of academic success at postsecondary institutions is an enduring issue for educational psychology. Traditional measures of high-school grade point average and high-stakes entrance examinations are valid predictors, especially of 1st-year college grades, yet a large amount of individual-differences variance remains unaccounted for. Studie...

Serious scientific games, especially those that include a virtual apprenticeship component, provide players with realistic experiences in science. This article discusses how science games can influence learning about science and the development of science-oriented possible selves through repeated practice in professional play and through social inf...

Over a century of psychological research provides strong and consistent support for the idea that cognitive ability correlates positively with success in tasks that people face in employment, education, and everyday life. Recent experimental research, however, has converged on a different and provocative conclusion, namely that lower-ability people...

The goal of personnel selection is to select employees who will succeed in a job, not just over the short-term, but over months and years. Yet, most research and theory in personnel selection does not explicitly consider the effect of time on personnel selection and training. The research that has been done has raised concerns about the utility of...

This study examined the effects of self-efficacy in preparatory and performance contexts. We conducted a longitudinal study of 63 students' exam preparation and performance. Three waves of data were collected in conjunction with course exams. Within each wave, self-efficacy was assessed at 2 time points, 1 week before the exam (preparatory self-eff...

A multimedia game was designed to serve as a dual-purpose intervention that aligned with National Science Content Standards, while also conveying knowledge about the consequences of alcohol consumption for a secondary school audience. A tertiary goal was to positively impact adolescents' attitudes toward science through career role-play experiences...

Demographic shifts and labor demands have prompted a renewed interest in the training and development of older workers. This chapter reviews research related to age and training and discusses the implications of this research on the practice of training. Specifically, we present research on the cognitive abilities and motivational processes that ch...

We report two studies that investigate single-response situational judgment tests (SJTs) as measures of job knowledge. Study 1 examines relationships between job knowledge measured by a single-response SJT, personality, and performance for museum tour guides. Study 2 extends Study 1’s findings with a sample of volunteers using a single-response SJT...

The current study examined the temporal effect of perceived training utility on adoption of a trained method and how perceived organizational support influences the relationship between perceived training utility perceptions and adoption of a trained method. With the use of a correlational-survey–based design, this longitudinal study required parti...

When people choose a particular occupation, they presumably make an implicit judgment that they will perform well on a job at some point in the future, typically after extensive education and/or on-the-job experience. Research on learning and skill acquisition has pointed to a power law of practice, where large gains in performance come early in pr...

Dyad training, where trainees learn in pairs but ultimately perform individually, has been shown to be an effective method for training some skills. The effectiveness of this approach, however, may be tied to the type of task to be trained and the quality of the interaction in the dyad. We report two studies on the effectiveness of dyad training an...

What are the consequences of testing over an extended period? We report a study of 4 hr of nearly continuous testing on two verbal tests (Cloze and Completion). Prior to the testing session, participants completed a series of nonability trait measures, including selected personality and motivation scales. During the study, participants (N = 99) wer...

Low structure training that includes instructions about the benefits of errors typically enhances learning for college-student samples. Changes in abilities and skills that occur with age suggest that these findings may not necessarily generalize to working adults. Three training conditions, varying in structure and instructions, were examined in a...

This study compared validities of situational judgment test (SJT) scoring keys that were presumed to be differentially saturated with specific knowledge about effective job behavior and general knowledge about effective trait expression. The keys were based on subject matter experts' effectiveness judgments, undergraduates' effectiveness judgments,...

Ability and non-ability traits were examined as predictors of learning, operationalized as the development of knowledge structure accuracy, and exam performance in a semester-long course. As predicted by investment theories of intellectual development, both cognitive ability and non-ability traits were important determinants of learning and exam pe...

The moderating effect of individual differences on the relationship between framing training as ‘basic’ or ‘advanced’ and interest in training was examined for technical and nontechnical content areas. Participants were 109 working-age adults (mean age = 38.14 years, SD = 12.20 years). Self-efficacy and goal orientation were examined as moderators....

Researchers are focusing on developing implicit measures of personality to address concerns related to the faking of self-report measures. The present study examined the validity and fakeability of Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures of personality self-concept in a repeated-measures design (N = 33). People’s predictions about how they represe...

Comments on an article "Transforming our models of learning and development: Web-based instruction as enabler of third-generation instruction" by Kurt Kraiger (see record 2010-13395-016). Kraiger’s third-generation instructional model, social constructivism, presents a paradigm of training in which learning takes place in a social context and "rig...

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to study the organization of executive functions in older adults. The four primary goals were to examine (a) whether executive functions were supported by one versus multiple underlying factors, (b) which underlying skill(s) predicted performance on complex executiv...

Cognitive Abilities in Personnel Selection and TestingSkills, Abilities, and Individual DifferencesHistory of Ability Testing in Industrial PsychologyAssessment in Personnel SelectionReliability and ValidityCognitive Abilities and Job PerformanceAdditional Considerations for the Use of Ability Tests in SelectionConclusions References

Age and TrainingThe Training and Development ProcessDesigning Training Interventions for Older LearnersFuture Research on Age and TrainingConclusion References

Measures of perceptual speed ability have been shown to be an important part of assessment batteries for predicting performance on tasks and jobs that require a high level of speed and accuracy. However, traditional measures of perceptual speed ability sometimes have limited cost-effectiveness because of the requirements for administration and scor...

The ability (fluid and crystallized intelligence) and nonability (personality, interests, self-concept, etc.) determinants of domain knowledge before and after an independent learning opportunity were evaluated in the context of a study of 141 adults between the ages of 18 and 69. The domain knowledge under consideration included an array of financ...

The ability (fluid and crystallized intelligence) and nonability (personality, interests, self-concept, etc.) determinants of domain knowledge before and after an independent learning opportunity were evaluated in the context of a study of 141 adults between the ages of 18 and 69. The domain knowledge under consideration included an array of financ...

Prior knowledge, fluid intelligence (Gf), and crystallized intelligence (Gc) were investigated as predictors of learning new information about cardiovascular disease and xerography with a sample of 199 adults (19 to 68 years). The learning environment included a laboratory multimedia presentation (high-constraint-maximal effort), and a self-directe...

The authors address agreements and disagreements with the M. J. Kane, D. Z. Hambrick, and A. R. A. Conway (2005) and K. Oberauer, R. Schulze, O. Wilhelm, and H.-M. Süß (2005) commentaries on P. L. Ackerman, M. E. Beier, and M. O. Boyle (2005). They discuss the following issues: (a) the relationship between working memory (WM) and general intelligen...

Several investigators have claimed over the past decade that working memory (WM) and general intelligence (g) are identical, or nearly identical, constructs, from an individual-differences perspective. Although memory measures are commonly included in intelligence tests, and memory abilities are included in theories of intelligence, the identity be...