Part I: Construct Development And Scale Creation 1. Create A ✓ Solved

Part I: Construct Development and Scale Creation 1. Create an o

1. Create an operational definition of your construct using at least three peer-reviewed journal articles as references. 2. Construct and Measure function in the workplace/Working Memory (example task: attendance or pay, or position) 3. Use the five items below to sample the domain: Work Performance, Skills/Experience, Male/Female, Age, and Educational Background. 4. Use as your method of scaling; Working Memory/ Construct and Measure function in the workplace (example task: attendance or pay, or position). 5. Justify why you selected the scaling method you did. 6. Format the items into an instrument with which you would query respondents. 7. Justify whether this is an interview or self-report instrument.

Paper For Above Instructions

Introduction

In contemporary workplaces, effective cognitive functioning is critical to job performance, particularly for tasks requiring significant mental processing, such as payroll management. This paper aims to construct and measure an operational definition of working memory (WM) and its functionality in the workplace by developing a structured instrument aimed at evaluating WM capacities among employees. Given the importance of WM in performing workplace tasks, this research will draw upon peer-reviewed literature to establish a reliable and valid measurement approach.

1. Operational Definition of Working Memory

Working memory (WM) can be operationally defined as the cognitive system responsible for temporarily holding information available for processing and manipulation (Baddeley, 2003). It comprises the capacity to retain and utilize information in short-term storage while performing cognitive tasks. According to Salthouse and Babcock (1991), WM capabilities can vary significantly across individuals and contexts, highlighting the need to tailor assessments of WM to job-specific functions such as payroll processing. This operational definition will focus on recalling pairs of monetary figures representative of employees' working hours and corresponding pay amounts, which could indicate employees' working memory capacities during financial tasks.

2. Construct and Measure Function in the Workplace

The focus of this research will be on assessing the functionality of WM within the confines of payroll processing tasks. This example task will allow the evaluation of how effectively employees can retain and recall relevant data when prompted, ultimately connected to their work performance. The measurement framework will include themes of Work Performance, Skills/Experience, Male/Female, Age, and Educational Background as they relate to employee performance outcomes.

3. Sampling the Domain

The instrument will consist of five core items that examine the intersection of working memory and the workplace demographics:

  • Work Performance: Evaluating the accuracy and timeliness of payroll tasks completed.
  • Skills/Experience: Assessing the correlation between employees' professional backgrounds and their performance metrics.
  • Male/Female: Investigating potential gender differences in WM capacity and performance.
  • Age: Examining how age-related cognitive changes might affect WM capabilities in workplace settings.
  • Educational Background: Analyzing the relationship between education levels and working memory performance.

4. Method of Scaling

The method of scaling chosen for this study will be a quantitative assessment using paired comparison methodology. Participants will be tasked with recalling pairs of information related to the payroll task, with reminders about the nature of the pairs provided prior to the test. Utilizing a structured Likert scale, the responses will be quantitatively analyzed to determine predominant trends and correlations.

5. Justification for the Scaling Method

This scaling method was chosen due to its effectiveness in evaluating cognitive performance in a controlled manner. By implementing a quantitative approach, clear statistical analyses can be conducted to derive meaningful conclusions about relationships among the selected demographic factors and working memory performance.

6. Instrument Development

The measuring instrument will consist of a series of structured tasks where participants will be presented with pairs of items (e.g., employee names and their corresponding payroll figures) to memorize for a brief time. They will be asked to recall these pairs after a two-minute delay, with the total number of accurate recalls constituting the performance outcome. The tasks will be designed to challenge and assess their working memory capabilities directly.

7. Nature of the Instrument: Interview vs. Self-Report

This instrument will predominantly be a self-report mechanism. Participants will not engage in interviews but will fill out the recall tasks independently. This approach is justified as self-reported measures can efficiently gather data from a larger pool of employees and allow for anonymity, potentially leading to more accurate assessments of WM performance without the bias of an interviewer’s presence (Spielberger, 1980).

Conclusion

In summary, the operational definition of working memory provided here outlines a well-structured approach to measuring cognitive function in workplace settings, particularly concerning payroll processes. The forthcoming analysis will employ the developed instrument to validate the efficacy of working memory assessments among employees while drawing critical insights into broader implications for workplace productivity.

References

  • Baddeley, A. (2003). Working memory: Looking back and looking forward. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4(10), 829–839.
  • Carruthers, B. G., & Espeland, W. N. (1991). Accounting for rationality: Double-entry bookkeeping and the rhetoric of economic rationality. The American Journal of Sociology, 97(1), 31–69.
  • Lund Research Ltd. (2012). Construct Validity. Retrieved from [URL].
  • McNamara, D. S., & Scott, J. L. (2001). Working memory capacity and strategy use. Memory & Cognition, 29, 10–17.
  • Psychology World. (2015). Left-handedness: Does it mean anything? Retrieved from [URL].
  • Salthouse, T. A., & Babcock, R. L. (1991). Decomposing adult age differences in working memory. Developmental Psychology, 27(5), 763–776.
  • Smith, E. E. (1991). Working memory. In Wilson, R. A. & Keil, F. C., The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Spielberger, C. D. (1980). Test anxiety inventory (TAI) manual. Consulting Psychologists Press.
  • Zhang, L., & Henderson, K. (2014). Test anxiety: A meta-analysis of the literature. In Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(1), 1-21.
  • Kandemir, M. (2013). A model explaining test anxiety: perfectionist personality traits and performance achievement goals. Educational Psychology, 33(3), 261-275.

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