A
Job Analysis is the process through which one gains an understanding of the activities, goals, and requirements demanded by a work assignment. Job analysis constitutes the preceding step of every application of
psychology to
human resource management including, but not limited to, the development of
personnel selection,
training,
performance evaluation,
job design, deployment, and
compensation systems.
Types of Job analysis The Position Analysis Questionnaire The Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) developed by McCormick, Jeanneret, and Mecham (1972) is a structured job analysis instrument to measure job characteristics and relate them to human characteristics. It consists of 195 job elements that represent human behavior involved in work activities”. The items that fall into five categories: • Information input (where and how the worker gets information) • Mental processes (reasoning and other processes that workers use) • Work output (physical activities and tools used on the job) • Relationships with other persons • Job context (the physical and social contexts of work) PAQ researchers have aggregated PAQ data for hundreds of jobs; that database are maintained by Purdue University. Many research exists on the PAQ; it has yielded reasonably good
reliability estimates and has been linked to several assessment tools”. Job seekers and employers answer questions on form outlining skills, abilities and knowledge needed to perform the job. Responses are calculated and a composite job requirement statement is produced. In a study of the comparative of 4 job analysis methods, PAQ method is structured to allow for easy quantification. The study also indicated it was closest and compatible to receive important information about an applicant The format of this method include in both data collection and computer analysis and can yield results much faster than the other methods. It has been shown to be extremely reliable, results usually replicate on a second administration. Because PAQ is worker oriented, it does not qualify if work is actually getting done on the job. Task differences on the job is not picked up because PAQ primarily focus on behaviors.
Occupational Analysis Inventory The Occupational Analysis Inventory (OAI) contains 617 "work elements." It was designed to yield more specific job information than other multi-job questionnaires such as the PAQ while still capturing work requirements for virtually all occupations. The major categories of items are five-fold: • Information Received •
Mental Activities •
Work Behavior •
Work Goals • Work Context OAI respondents rate each job element on one of four rating scales: part-of-job, extent, applicability, or a special scale designed for the element. The OAI has been used to gather information on 1,400 jobs selected to represent five major occupational categories. Reliabilities obtained with the OAI have been moderate, somewhat lower than those achieved with the PAQ”.
Functional job analysis Job analysis as a management technique was developed around 1900. It became one of the tools by which managers understood and directed organization the website's findings state, “Beginning in the 1940s,
functional job analysis (FJA) was used by
U.S. Employment Service job analysts to classify jobs for the DOT (Fine & Wiley, 1971). The most recent version of FJA uses seven scales to describe what workers do in jobs: • Things •
Data • People • Worker Instructions •
Reasoning • Math • Language Each scale has several levels that are anchored with specific behavioral statements and illustrative tasks. Like other job analysis instruments, FJA is a methodology for collecting job information. While it was used for many years as a part of the DOT, the Department of Labor is replacing the DOT with O*NET and will not be using FJA in O*NET. There is no current database of jobs (other than the DOT) containing FJA data for jobs in the national economy”. ==Goal of Individual Assessment Methods==