Author Archives: Isobel

Can there really be one system and one path for success?

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This lay summary is based on the chapter ‘Neurodiversity in Higher Education: Support For Neurodifferent Individuals and Professionals’ by Dr Nancy Doyle in ‘Neurodiversity: From Phenomenology to Neurobiology and Enhancing Technologies‘ edited by Lawrence K. Fung. The summary is written by Nicola Maguire, Psychologist at Genius Within CIC.

Headshot of Dr Nancy Doyle.

As time evolves, the understanding that humans are different is becoming more widely understood and accepted. However, when it comes to higher education (HE) we still live in a world where there is one system, one path to success despite knowing that individuals can be completely different learners, thinkers and doers.

For many neurodifferent students, accessing higher education still feels impossible. So, the issue that is presented in the chapter is that the higher education setting as it currently stands does not help everyone to flourish, to foster self-belief and build confidence. Rather people experience feelings of failure, not having self-belief and a lack of confidence.

In order to address this, the chapter notes that systems in higher education can be
redesigned to support neurodifferent students. The chapter suggests creating a ‘Universal Design’, based on disability research, to ensure that all students have equal access to learning. Universal Design creates a learning journey that considers the needs and abilities of all learners and removes unnecessary hurdles in the learning process.

In order for this to work, universal design principles need to be applied across contexts in the HE system.

Systems can be changed in the following areas:

  • Environment for learning
  • Learning materials provided
  • Testing conditions

The main ways to flex these areas is in considering the senses. Avoiding overwhelming, loud environments and giving students choice and flexibility about where they learn.

Making sure learning materials can be listened to or read, at different speeds and in multi-sensory formats. Give opportunities for questions asked live but also via chat. Testing conditions to reduce time pressures and reduce sensory overwhelm.

Additional supports can also be offered to individuals:

  • Assistive technology
  • Coaching
  • Mentoring
  • Group coaching

The most important thing for student support is building independence rather than doing things for students. They need to transition to the workplace when they leave HE. Therefore, they need to be doing things for themselves more and more. Coaching should be aimed at reinforcing strengths and self-awareness of barriers.

Conclusion

Higher education should and needs to be offering ND students different types of support. A Universal Design in environment, learning and tests would enable higher education to become accessible and achievable.

Alongside the combination of supportive measures such as coaching, mentoring and group coaching to increase self-efficacy in ND students. By implementing this approach in a higher education setting it will safeguard that ND students have equal opportunities to do their best, by ensuring that the process is proactive, positive and that appropriate support is provided for all.

We can deliver a much-needed healing and self-affirming experience to students through this process which will result in individuals building their self-belief in their ability to ‘be able to’ which means the difference between career aspirations being met or falling short.

‘Neurodiversity is a moral, social and economic imperative; we all lose when
human potential is squandered’

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What do we know about age stereotyping in personnel decisions?

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Dr Lisbeth Drury and Dr Keely Jo Frasca share insights from a new commentary paper published in Work, Aging and Retirement with co-authors Maaike Schellaert and Prof Eva Derous (Ghent University).

Do age stereotypes influence personnel decisions? While there is a wide body of research exploring age stereotyping in the workplace, a recent commentary paper by Murphy & DeNisi (2021) has questioned the validity and usefulness of lab studies in this area. In the commentary paper ‘Age Stereotyping in Resume Screening: Don’t Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater’, we explore the implications and validity of research in this area and suggest some avenues for future research.

Why stereotypes matter in resume screening

Stereotypes are widely held, over simplified ideas about the characteristics and behaviour of particular social groups. We know from impression formation theory (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990) that we revert to stereotypes when meeting a stranger, but that we consider people on an individual basis when more detailed information is provided, for example through conversation.

Many personnel decisions are made once staff are known on an individual level, for example performance reviews, promotion decisions, or offers of employment following an interview. In these instances, knowing the person on an individual level is more likely to influence decision-makers’ thinking than stereotypes.

However, when it comes to external hires, the process of reviewing resumes can be viewed as a ‘stranger-to-stranger’ interaction, which is more likely to lead to stereotyping because of the lack of wider knowledge about the candidate. While we cannot exclude the impact of bias at interview, we expect age stereotypes to have the greatest influence at resume screening stage. It is, therefore, important to examine the effects of age stereotypes in resume screening separately from other types of personnel decisions.

Issues with lab studies

Lab studies have been criticised because scenarios where participants judge fictitious workers ‘on paper’ are not deemed realistic (Murphy & DeNisi, 2021). This may be true in the case of performance evaluations or promotion decisions, where a written vignette may not feel true to life. However, for job applications, which are in an ‘on paper’ format in real life, such studies may offer greater validity.

Furthermore, there is criticism about the use of student participants to judge resumes, rather than HR personnel or assessors with experience. However, most studies include a combination of both types of participants and decisions are similar across these two groups.

Triangulating the findings of age stereotype research

It is important to note that resume screening research does not always report age bias towards older workers. This could be for several reasons, for example how the study has been designed and whether age cues in the resumes are implicit (e.g. an older sounding name) or explicit (e.g. date of birth). More research is needed to understand the conditions that cause disparities in findings, by decreasing or increasing bias.

Age stereotypes are complex and research in this area uses a wide range of methods and theoretical approaches. While each study alone may not give a full picture, together they provide a wealth of evidence that is greater than the sum of their parts. By combining what we know from different methodologies, disciplines and theories, we can reach greater insight.

Instead of ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ by discounting particular types of research, we should conduct more research in both the field and lab, triangulating the results, to gain a holistic understanding of how and to what extent age stereotypes affect the outcomes of resume screening.

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Promoting Neuro-Inclusion in Bordeaux

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Ben Morris is a PhD candidate at Birkbeck’s Centre for Neurodiversity at Work. He reflects on a presentation given at the 15th European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology Conference, 6-8 July 2022, University of Bordeaux, France.

To what extent does the traditional triad job selection process (CV, interview,
references) hinder job seekers who are neurodiverse or neurotypical to access
employment?

Even though there are a lot of programmes like ‘Autism at Work’ and other
employment initiatives for people with disabilities, the employment gap for
neurodiverse people is still big. One of the things that makes it hard for neurodiverse
people to get and keep regular, paid work is that the world of work is set up for
neurotypical people, including the recruitment process.

At the conference in Bordeaux, I talked about my future research, which will be about
finding the right ‘fit’ and how, when done right, this can help both the neurodiverse
person and the organisation. Finding the right ‘fit’ for an organisation can be good
for the health and well-being of employees. The hiring process can also have an
effect on an applicant’s health. I also talked about the good things and strengths
about hiring a neurodiverse person from an employer’s point of view and used
evidence from the literature to back this up. I told them that my study would be about
the ways that the traditional triad recruitment process chooses people (CV, interview
and reference).

The goal of the study is to answer the question, ‘To what extent does the traditional
triad job selection process (CV, interview, references) hinder job seekers who are
neurodiverse or neurotypical to access employment?’

I went on to say that the methods used to do this will be based on a review of the
literature and conversations with stakeholders, including people who have lived
experience.

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Publishing for real-world impact: helping engaged scholars navigating the publication process

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Dr Konstantinos Chalkias was a keynote speaker on impactful research at the Academy of Management Paper Development Workshop in August.

Dr Konstantinos Chalkias, Senior Lecturer in Birkbeck’s Department of Management was a keynote speaker at the Academy of Management Paper Development Workshop ‘Publishing for Real-World Impact: Helping Engaged Scholars Navigating the Publication Process’ on 6 August 2022.

The hybrid panel event, organised by the Impact Scholar Community, invited editor-author pairs to discuss the process of conducting and publishing research with impact.

Panellists were invited to comment on preparing a manuscript for submission with impact in mind; interacting with editors; and connecting published work with practice to maximise impact.

Reflecting on his 2019 paper ‘Exploring inter-organizational paradoxes: methodological lessons from a study of a grand challenge’, Konstantinos noted the synergies between writing papers and producing impactful work: “I believe that working on impact enables us to write better papers and working on papers enables us to have better impact.” Both Konstantinos and co-author Paula Jarzabkowski cautioned against producing work for the sake of impact, commenting instead that when research is high quality and answering important questions, it will inevitably involve generating impact in practice.

Konstantinos also commented on the value that editors bring to the paper development process. Editors can be instrumental in encouraging the authors to include more of the study’s context in the paper, bringing the grand challenge they explored to life.

The discussion was part of the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

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