Effects of an early interruption and note taking on listening accuracy and decision making in the interview

Abstract

Employment interviewers (N = 102) and managers (N = 128) viewed a videotaped interview of an MBA applicant for a management position. Participants were assigned to the cells of a 2 by 2 by 2 factorial design with two levels of participants (interviewer, manager), two levels of concurrent note taking (required, forbidden) , and two levels of interruption early in the interview (interrupted, control). The dependent variables were the score on a 25·item listening accuracy test based on the transcript of the interview, and the overall suitability evaluation of the applicant by the professionals. Results indicated no significant difference between participant groups and no significant effects on overall suitability judgments. Both the interruption and note taking had a significant impact on listening accuracy. The highest rate of accuracy (79%)was for the required note taking and no-interruption condition.Little is known about the accuracy of the information interviewers use when making overall suitability judgments. One recent study by Schuh (1978) showed that levels of accuracy range considerably even from a 12-min interview. Listening accuracy has been a neglected issue in interview research.Although the practice of note taking for study purposes by students is widespread, experimental evidence with respect to the efficacy of note taking for employment interviewers is not available. Even with student populations, the .experimental evidence is not without confusion. An early work (Crawford, 1925) showed that note takers had higher immediate and long-term recall scores than non-note takers . A recent work (Howe, 1970) reported that the probability of recalling an item that occurred in the learner's notes was about seven times that of items not in the notes. The results do not always favor the note taker, however. Ash and Carlton (1953) reported Significantly lower recall scores for note takers than for non-note takers during a ftlmpresentation. If there is an advantage in note taking, it is that the learners, in the process of taking the notes, "encode" the information by reorganizing the input data and putting it in their own words (Fisher & Harris, 1973), and the sensory motor process of recording the information also serves as an opportunity for rehearsal (Aiken, Thomas, & Shennum, 1975) .On the negative side, the process of note taking may interfere with memory . It has been known for quite some time that when no activity at all is demanded from a subject during a retention interval, very little forgetting occurs (Brown, 1958). Primary memory Requests for reprints should be sent to Allen J. Schuh,

Interviewers’ Moods and Evaluations of Job Applicants: The Role of Applicant Qualifications1

“…Included among such variables are (a) applicants' sex, race, and age (Arvey & Campion, 1982;Hitt & Barr, 1989;McIntyre, Moberg, & Posner, 1980), (b) applicants' personal attractiveness and several aspects of their grooming and style of dress (Forsythe, Drake, & Cox, 1985;Raza & Carpenter, 1987), and (c) applicants' stylistic or behavioral characteristics, such as the number and pattern of nonverbal cues they emit during interviews (e.g., Parsons & Liden, 1984;Rasmussen, 1984). Because such factors influence interviewer ratings but are unrelated to the performance of many jobs, they often serve an sources of potential bias in the interview process along with other wellestablished sources of error such as primacy-recency effects, interviewerapplicant similarity, and contrast errors (e.g., Dipboye, 1989;Farr & York, 1975;Schuh, 1978;Tucker & Rowe, 1978).…”

The Effects of Interruptions, Task Complexity, and Information Presentation on Computer‐Supported Decision‐Making Performance

“…Given the detrimental influence of task complexity on computer‐based decision making (Robinson & Swink, 1994; Crossland, Wynne, & Perkins, 1995; Swink & Robinson, 1997) and the likely negative influence of interruptions (Cellier & Eyrolle, 1992; Shiffman & Griest‐Bousquet, 1992; Schuh, 1978), an important question is whether information systems can be designed to mitigate these effects (Rouncefield, Viller, Hughes, & Rodden, 1995). Prior research has identified information presentation as a factor affecting decision performance (DeSanctis, 1984; Tan & Benbasat, 1990; Vessey, 1991).…”

Influence of Response Mode on Order Effects in the Interview

“…A possible direction to pursue is note taking during the interview. Note taking during the interview has received some attention (e.g., Burnett, Fan, Motowidlo, & DeGroot, 1998;Macan & Dipboye, 1994;Middendorf & Macan, 2002;Schuh, 1978) but has not been investigated as a means of alleviating order effects. Until more is known about how to eliminate order effects, interviewers may want to order their interview questions based on importance to the job.…”