Hi Dap: To my knowledge, this is the only published study that has pitted actuarial against clinical judgment in this regard: Dawes, R. M. (1971). A case study of graduate admissions: Application of three principles of human decision making. American Psychologist, 26, 180-188. ....although perhaps something more recent along these lines has appeared. The Abstract appears below: Reports that 3 principles of human judgment apply to the decisions of a graduate admissions committee. The 1st of these principles is that a linear combination of the variables considered by the committee does a better job of predicting graduate success than does the committee; the 2nd principle is that the committee's judgment may itself be represented "paramorphically" by a linear combination of these variables, and the 3rd that this paramorphic representation is superior to the committee in predicting graduate success. Re: some of the recent discussions on TIPS, it's crucial to dispel a common fallacy, namely, that more information can only help (or at least be neutral), not hurt, clinical decisions. That assertion is false, as the recent article summarized by Dan Willingham shows. In fact, Jack Sawyer found suggestive evidence for this phenomenon as far back as the 1960s (Sawyer, 1966, Psychological Bulletin). Sawyer reported that the addition of unstructured interview information slightly lowered the overall validity of clinical judgments of applicant success. Almost certainly what is going on there is what Nisbett and colleagues term the "dilution effect" (the recent article makes this point as well). Humans aren't especially good at differentially weighting diverse types of information. Often, we have several pieces of somewhat valid information (e.g., SAT scores, grades, previous experiences) at our disposal to allow us to make predictions of student success. When we then receive a new piece of information that is (a) of lower validity but (b) more salient and vivid, we often place more weight on the novel, less valid information, thereby lowering overall validity. Hence, additional information, including poorly collected interview information, can actually have negative clinical incremental validity and be worse than useless. We should not assume that asking interviewees new questions won't come with a cost. There's simply no way to know without conducting a study. .....Scott
From: Dap Louw [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 5:50 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Predictor variables for PhD Several years ago I read about a study on which variables predict a successful outcome for a PhD in Psychology. I would appreciate a full reference. Thank you. Dap Louw ******************************************************************** Dap Louw, Ph.D.(Psych.), Ph.D. (Crim.) Extraordinary Professor Centre for Psychology and the Law Department of Psychology University of the Free State P.O. Box 339 Bloemfontein 9300 South Africa Cell: 083-391-8331 Fax: 051 401 3556 Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Tel: 043 841 1193 (home) ******************************************************************** _____________________________________________________________________ University of the Free State: This message and its contents are subject to a disclaimer. Please refer to http://www.ufs.ac.za/disclaimer for full details. Universiteit van die Vrystaat: Hierdie boodskap en sy inhoud is aan 'n vrywaringsklousule onderhewig. Volledige besonderhede is by http://www.ufs.ac.za/vrywaring beskikbaar. _____________________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9b2f&n=T&l=tips&o=29980 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-29980-13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-29980-13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> ________________________________ This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the original message (including attachments). --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=29985 or send a blank email to leave-29985-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
