Richard Landers and Tara Behrend launch season four by introducing their new textbook “Research Methods for IO Psychology.” The hosts discuss their unique approach to research methods education, emphasizing the human decisions and personal judgment that shape scientific inquiry in industrial-organizational psychology. They explore how connecting with the research community builds expertise and share insights about their seven-year writing journey. The conversation highlights stories from researchers with diverse career paths, from academia to workplace consulting, demonstrating that research skills are valuable across all professional settings. Key takeaways include: research is done by people with personal stories; expertise requires community connection; knowledge is collaboratively built; professional judgment develops through experience; growth involves discomfort but leads to mastery; research methods transcend academic boundaries; building a research identity requires ethical reflection; the book emphasizes philosophy over cookbook approaches; upcoming episodes will feature researcher interviews; and the interactive psychology podcast format continues evolving.
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Transcript
[Richard Landers] (0:00 – 0:42)
Welcome to the Great IO Get-Together. On tonight’s show, quips and queries about the world of work as IO Psychology comes alive. Now please welcome our hosts, Richard and Tara.
Welcome everyone to Great IO Get-Together number 26. My name is Richard, this is my co-host Tara. Welcome to season four, where we’re going to be exploring our recent textbook, Research Methods for IO Psychology.
So today we’re going to be talking a bit about what that book is and why you might read it or be reading it and have been assigned to listen to us talking right now. Welcome to our show. So yeah, why don’t you start talking a little bit about what is the book, who’s the audience, who is this book for?
[Tara Behrend] (0:43 – 1:14)
I think this book is for anybody who does research or thinks about research and wants to be a little bit more thoughtful about how they approach it. So the book talks about research from the perspective of all the human decisions that go into doing a research study and making those judgment calls and how to be confident about the decisions that you’re making and how to communicate that to other people. So I think everybody needs to reflect on that once in a while.
What do you think?
[Richard Landers] (1:15 – 3:11)
Yeah, it was really important for me when we were writing and we talked about it a lot of times about trying to make it as accessible as possible, because there’s an awful lot of reference books out there, right, that are just like card catalog-y. That’s a, that dates me right there. Just lists, just lists of like, here’s a bunch of sources and here are the facts that those sources convey.
And here is the, you know, quote unquote, best practice that emerges from that. My experience of research, and I think yours too, is that there’s a lot more, everyone’s favorite word, nuance to it, in terms of how we navigate. It’s a whole, there’s a whole section in a chapter about that.
There’s a lot of personal judgment, subjective judgment, that is based on expertise that when you’re, especially doing your first research project, you don’t have a lot to call on. And so we wanted to explore that sort of human element. Yeah.
And that’s making it not only, not only the content written at that level, but written in a way that you don’t need to have a strong background in social science or in statistics or any of that in order to get what you need out of it. Part of it too, is that I was really, I was getting concerned about how we have an increasing number of master’s students in IO, which is great, but a lot of those programs don’t emphasize the research methods component as maybe as strongly as they could. And having a centralized resource so that, so that, you know, anybody, regardless of their entry point and their experience could, could gain those skills.
I mean, I think it’s part of what makes IO psychology so valuable in workplaces too, is that we’re the ones that take that scientific, systematic view of problems. And you need research methods to really do that effectively, validly.
[Tara Behrend] (3:11 – 4:20)
Well, you know, I really appreciate a lot of what you just said. First of all, something I love about this book is that it gives a sense of connection to the people behind the research. Like I, I think it’s so important to remember that research is done by people.
And I think the book does a nice job of showing that by talking about the stories behind the papers that you might read and that the people who did those studies talking about why they did the study, what kinds of troubles they ran into along the way. I think that really gives a different kind of perspective. And by the way, as far as the word nuance, you know, my students like to make fun of me a lot for, for my hatred of that word.
But the reason I don’t like it is because people say it because they hear other people say it, it’s an automatic behavior. And one thing we want people to do is just be thoughtful about the decisions they make and the words they choose and not choose a word because it sounds academic or because you saw other people doing it, but because it’s the word you want to use. And I think that applies to all kinds of research decisions.
Like don’t just do a statistical test because that’s what someone else did do it because you know, it’s the right one that helps you answer your question.
[Richard Landers] (4:21 – 4:24)
That’s, it’s a good insight from your excellent experience.
[Tara Behrend] (4:25 – 4:26)
How dare you?
[Richard Landers] (4:29 – 5:55)
Yeah, the, the stories piece I think is a great one and one that I’m really proud of that we could get include that. Cause you know, a lot of my experiences in graduate school was, it’s sort of like a, a meet your heroes aspect of like this, the SIAF conference is a good example where people who you spend a lot of time reading papers from, you just suddenly are like, Oh, you’re like a real human being and you have opinions. And you’re not just an automatic authoritative voice on all matters research.
Like you, you, you’re exploring this also. And I remember thinking like realizing that and also seeing how much further along that journey they were than I was at, that the complexity, the way they approach problems was a lot more complete than the way that I was approaching problems. And just having that exposure in one, in one way, it made it seem more like achievable, like, Oh, you’re, you’re just, you’re on a journey just like me.
And in other ways, it was a little, I don’t know, I don’t know if empowering is the right word, but it was just like, Oh, I can, I can see myself now a little more clearly in how I fit in this community. And that that’s not something that is always obvious when you’re in the depths of coursework. And especially for people who never have the opportunity to do that kind of travel or meet those kinds of folks, like it’s a, it’s a privileged group.
And I want more people to have that kind of experience to really connect them to the field deeply.
[Tara Behrend] (5:55 – 6:24)
And I think it’s necessary. Like, if you want to be an expert, expertise implies that connection to a community. I think in addition to knowledge and judgment and wisdom and experience, there’s a sense of knowing the community that you’re contributing to that, that is necessary.
Like you can take all the classes that you want, but you won’t really be an expert in the way that we need experts in the field because you have to understand what that field is and who, who’s participating in the field.
[Richard Landers] (6:24 – 8:14)
It’s such a hard lesson to realize that knowledge is jointly built. Yeah. Yes.
It’s also collaboratively developed and built though. I mean, it’s why science is such a useful set of tools where we can explicitly question our own assumptions and build something together. And that when somebody is learning about research literature, they’re not just learning facts.
They’re, they’re learning about how we got to the point that we are now and all the different ways it’s still have to go. Like there’s, so we know so little in the grand scheme of everything we could know about workplaces or people or whatever your lens is. And that’s, that’s ultimately all about our agreement within a community that we value and understand.
So if you don’t really connect with that community, then you have no reason to be a part of those conversations or care about the conversations. And that I don’t know, that, that seems it’s a shame. Like it’s a, it’s a loss when there’s so much promising young talent, I guess, I don’t know how to, how to say it, but folks that are, you know, pursuing graduate study in IO, I think they do it for similar reasons across the board, where there’s this sort of dual promise of the, the rigor and importance of like, really understanding the psychology of, of, of people in workplaces, but also this sort of practical promise of being able to make a difference and improve things. And that that’s, that’s sort of combined motivation.
I just, I want it, we need to harness it as much as we possibly can. And I hope at least in some way, in some small way that this book helps people see like that path for themselves. Like that’s, that’s really what a big part of why I wanted to write it in the, in the first place.
[Tara Behrend] (8:15 – 9:02)
Yeah. I was really happy that we could showcase stories from people who had really different paths to, I think to your point, but there isn’t one way to make a difference in the field. There isn’t one way to be a researcher.
You know, being a researcher doesn’t mean at all that you work in a university, although it could mean that, you know, it could mean that you’re using your research brain to answer questions for an organization or for a county, if you work in the public sector, or that you’re critically evaluating what you read. I think that that kind of brain is, is what we need, but it lives in all kinds of settings. And I think the book does a nice job of showing how that’s possible and, and, you know, using examples, using stories from people who have chosen different paths.
The fundamentals are basically the same no matter who’s writing your paycheck.
[Richard Landers] (9:03 – 9:11)
Yeah. Are there any particular stories that stood out to you, like any favorites from the set that we got?
[Tara Behrend] (9:12 – 9:45)
Well, I’m very happy that this whole season of the podcast will be highlighting some of those same stories. So maybe I won’t give any spoilers, but I will say that I really liked being able to include stories from my own lab too. And from the research papers that we’ve worked on together, I think it’s like a nice way of revisiting some of the wisdom that I’ve had to earn the hard way, essentially.
And being able to talk about, you know, mistakes I’ve made in the past that I know I wouldn’t make again. It’s a nice reminder that, that we’re all still growing and learning.
[Richard Landers] (9:45 – 10:42)
There’s one particular like inset box somewhere in there about data cleaning that I remember explicitly being like, what, why do I do this? Having to really reflect on it for a minute. And I think that actually comes out pretty well in, in, in the box of just like, I do it this way.
And there’s, I have some reasons and I think they’re okay, but it’s mostly at this point for consistency. Cause that’s what I’ve always done. So I don’t want to like over optimize on a new problem.
So this is just kind of by default, what I do. And that, that kind of ambiguity is just inherent to the decision-making in a lot dimensions of research design. And that’s where your kind of professional judgment and your confidence in your, in your training and in your knowledge and in your skill becomes so important.
So I, yeah, I hope, I hope stories like that people resonate with in their own struggles with not well-defined problems they’re trying to solve.
[Tara Behrend] (10:43 – 10:58)
Yeah. And just remember that growth is pain, right? And that, that the process of doing things that you don’t know how to do is really uncomfortable, but that’s the way that you get good at them.
And so it’s totally fine. And, you know, we’re all in the same boat together. Yeah.
[Richard Landers] (10:59 – 11:07)
Well, what was your experience? Like, I know my side of this, what was your experience writing this thing? Uh, it was all, all roses, I assume.
[Tara Behrend] (11:08 – 11:43)
Yeah, it was great. It only took us seven years. I actually really loved writing this book.
I thought it was much more satisfying than writing. Like you said, like a normal textbook where we’re conveying equations. I think the, the opportunity to reflect and integrate different, um, ideas about things and, and try to put them in an order that feels logical and that somebody would benefit from it was really satisfying for me.
It didn’t feel like a burden. Like I said, it only took seven short years. So it basically.
[Richard Landers] (11:45 – 13:22)
Yeah. It’s not a, it’s not a way that I had thought about research methods education ahead of time. And I think the standard IO psych model is, well, we’re going to throw you in whatever methods and stats training classes happen to be available.
And then we’re going to put you on some projects. And when gaps emerge, I guess we’ll talk about it and try to figure out how to fill the gaps and what you, what you understand. And I remember situations with grad students, training graduate students, where they’d be like, Oh, actually I haven’t ever, we’ve never explicitly talked about meta-analysis before.
And like, Oh, well we should talk about that then. Uh, and this is, this is a very different way of thinking about it of saying, well, if I start literally from day one and try to build someone’s knowledge and methods, like what does that look like? Uh, and how do we ensure we haven’t missed anything important?
That was a, that was a big area of, uh, of challenge. Um, cause it’s just, yeah, I don’t, I don’t think most, I don’t think most IO faculty would conceptualize research methods, education as like a single body of knowledge. Uh, most people, I suspect just kind of grab bits and pieces as they need them and just build up this sort of ball of information over time.
But that’s a very easy path to big holes. Uh, and that’s what I noticed different students would have different things that they were about to like sometimes about to graduate. I’m like, Oh, you’ve never actually had a project on X.
Do you, how much do you know about X? Um, and it’s just basically what they’ve absorbed in different contexts rather than any systematic education in it. So trying to, to present that in a, in a straightforward way, I think that was more challenging than actually writing the chapters, like really figuring out the mental model of methods we were working toward.
[Tara Behrend] (13:23 – 14:13)
I’m trying to make decisions about what couldn’t go in because we can’t fit everything in one book also is, you know, I think we had to omit some topics that we would have loved to include, but the, the truth is that once you have a methods brain, right, then you’re, then you’re approaching these things and these new ideas or these new techniques with the same toolbox, the same mental model, but you have to build that mental model. And when you, when you learn it in a piecemeal fashion, that model doesn’t get built.
Like, you don’t know why you would choose one design over another. You just know that these are the designs. And then if there’s one that’s missing, you wouldn’t necessarily reflect on that.
So at the expense, I think of including some topics that would have been fun to include, you know, we focused on, on things that will be the building blocks.
[Richard Landers] (14:13 – 14:17)
Yeah. What, what did we leave out that you would have liked to have covered?
[Tara Behrend] (14:18 – 15:24)
Oh, well, I mean, there were some kinds of designs that we didn’t really talk about. We didn’t, you know, go into say, for example, like the peculiarities of daily diary designs. And I think that’s okay.
Again, there’s, there’s always going to be innovation and designs or things that become a sort of trendy and, and like en vogue. And so expecting a book to be an encyclopedia of options, like a cookbook, I think is not smart. The fact that this book is not a cookbook or an encyclopedia is a good thing.
And I think that what we’ve done is, is cover fewer things, but cover them from a much more philosophical perspective. Like, I’m really happy that we included at the front half of the book, the philosophy of science, and also building a research identity and like really thinking about ethics. I think that is so much more important than knowing how to do a t-test.
Like knowing how to do a t-test will take you half an afternoon to learn, but building a sense of your professional ethics is something that’s much more important than that. And so I’m glad that we were able to fit those ideas in.
[Richard Landers] (15:24 – 16:09)
You know, and I think it also makes it more applicable to both people, to people on both a practitioner and more academic like career track, as the number of people in practice that need like experience sampling methods is not very high. But the kind of the number of people that need to think about, well, why are we doing this project? What are all like, what are the values that are driving this?
How are the, the pressures that are coming from different parts of the organization or from my own career or from whatever, those are universal concerns. And you know, I, I would not want the first person that a person that the first time that a person got pushed into a corner where they had to like make a personal value judgment on a thing to be like on the job after they graduated. That’s seems risky.
[Tara Behrend] (16:11 – 16:15)
So what do we have in plan for this season of the podcast?
[Richard Landers] (16:16 – 17:11)
I think anybody who’s been watching for a while noticed we’re in a little bit different format right now. And that’s because we wanted to continue making the sort of stories and the personal struggles and the personal adventures through learning about methods to be a little more tangible. So we’re going to be interviewing a variety of people, some of which are in the book and some of which aren’t about each the general kind of content in each chapter.
So not instructional videos, but you know, rather the goal is to say, when we talk about research identity, like let’s talk to somebody who has, you know, dealt with those kinds of issues, has some good insights to share and just have a conversation to kind of illustrate how this stuff really plays out in the real world, so to speak that is in the book, but it’s nice to hear it from a person’s mouth, like really sharing it and understanding the sort of context of the experience that they have.
[Tara Behrend] (17:11 – 17:18)
Yeah, well, I’m glad we don’t have to do any more game shows, because I ran out of game shows to parody. So it’s good that we’re making a shift.
[Richard Landers] (17:19 – 17:32)
Yeah, you know, I think that’s going to disappoint some fraction of folks. I think we’re going to hear it. Yeah, but you know, maybe maybe season five coming up, you know, we can get back to some crazy stuff.
I don’t know.
[Tara Behrend] (17:32 – 17:35)
Maybe there will be new game shows by then that I can riff on.
[Richard Landers] (17:36 – 17:38)
Fully, fully brand new game shows. Yes.
[Tara Behrend] (17:39 – 17:44)
There will be some kind of AI nonsense to react to. So we can, you can look forward to that.
[Richard Landers] (17:45 – 18:22)
Perfect. I think that’s this is a pretty good intro of what we’re going to be doing. I hope folks will stick around.
We’ll be releasing chapter episodes about every two weeks with a little bit of break over the holiday. But yeah, I encourage folks if you like the conversation we’ve had today, and you’re still watching at this point, you’ll probably like all the episodes that will come after this. And I hope to see you there.
That’s it for another gig. To stay in touch, subscribe on YouTube, check out our website at the gig.online, join our LinkedIn group, sign up for our email notification list and join our Discord. Thanks for joining us and see you next time for another great IO get together.