Examining science/knowledge gaps within occupational health psychology, organizational training, and performance feedback
Date
2024
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Identifying and minimizing knowledge gaps between science and practice within Industrial-Organizational (I-O) is essential to improve workers' health and wellbeing as well as their broader experiences at work by ensuring that organizations use empirically supported practices. Though the science/practice gap has been recognized and studied in some areas of I-O psychology, such as selection, the purpose of this study was to investigate the science/knowledge gap in new subfields such as occupational health psychology (OHP) and performance feedback. The current study also attempted to assess the science/knowledge gap in organizational training, which has been examined in previous research. However, our study not only examined the science/knowledge gap among practitioners, as previous research has, but also among academics for all three subtopics of OHP, performance feedback, and organizational training. This cross-sectional study examined the relationships between 218 participants' demographic variables (e.g., occupation, self-perceived expertise) and their knowledge of I-O psychology research measured by true/false items summarizing published findings. Results indicated academics answered more true/false items correctly compared to practitioners. However, findings regarding relationships between correct responding and participants' coursework on relevant topics were mixed. Implications from these findings are discussed in light of empirical and applied contributions to the literature.
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Embargo expires: 08/16/2025.
Subject
industrial
organizational
science
knowledge
gap
psychology