<First, at the undergraduate level, to what extent is I/O taught as a single
<course versus separate I and O courses?
Mark (and other I/O instructors:
I have taught I/O both as a single course and as separate I and O
courses. I found that the psychology texts in I/O are organized as
semester-long treatments that nearly always cover both. (Muchinsky's text is
the current leader--Brooks/Cole, but there are a number of others worth
looking at). If you want to teach the personnel topics in one course and
organizational behavior in another, you will probably have to select texts
from the business school listings (which are much more business oriented).
Typically, departments of management have separate courses for human
resource management and for organizational behavior. The problem is that
they tend to be too superficial in their treatment of behavioral science and
psychological research--with a heavier emphasis on the nuts-and-bolts of
managing an organization. Of course, you always have the option of
developing your course without the simplicity and convenience of a regular
15-chapter text as the backbone.
My personal solution is to use a traditional I/O text for a course
reviewing the personnel and organizational topics in one semester. In a
separate nontraditional course, I deal with the social-organizational topics
in a purely experiential manner. This latter course is formed around
in-class exercises and weekly papers, with no tests or memorization
involved. These two courses seem to complement each other is a satisfactory
way. Incidently, our version of the psyc major includes a "psychological
skills" component: Students must take one of three courses -- my
social-org'l skills course, a group processes course, or a course on
interviewing skills. This requirement does wonders for keeping the
enrollment up in my course.
The syllabie for these two I/O courses are available at
http://www.humboldt.edu/~campbell/psyc.htm
The description of the major is at http://www.humboldt.edu/~psych/ugprog.htm
--David Campbell
Humboldt State University
