Evaluating human capital policy in the federal government.

Abstract

United States General Accounting Office2This article describes the consulting role the author, a psycholo gist, performs at the United States General Accounting Office (GAO). It explains how GAO responds to information requests from Congress, GAO's process of evaluating human capital efforts and policies at federal agencies, and the special circumstances of designing studies at GAO. Management challenges and techniques of working in a matrix-management setting are also discussed.This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Influencing public policy from the inside.

“…First, Elias' (2001) job saves many lives, a rare event for a psychologist, and his role as “detective/scientist” is very interesting. What is striking in Wilmoth's (2001) article is the intellectual breadth of his position, the need to consult/co-opt people into the process, and the wide variety of people who can legitimately criticize the effort.…”

“…Understanding others' perceptions of issues and solutions is very much related to Wilmoth's (2001) article. He describes the proposal and possible data to various stakeholders to be sure they would not criticize and raise unassessed issues after the fact.…”

“…As such, the editor probably could have selected any of thousands of psy chologists who fit that description. In this special section, we find articles written by a staff member in a non-profit organiza tion whose role is tracking and affecting science policy (Nelson, 2001), a former federal administrator who had broad poli cy responsibilities (Turkkan, 2001), an investigator in a specialized field highly linked to policy (Elias, 2001), psycholo gists who work on Capitol Hill with elect ed officials who set policy directly' through legislation (DeLeon, Eckert & Wilkins, 2001), and a general/method ological evaluator of specific public poli cies and their implementation (Wilmoth, 2001).…”

Introduction to the special section on psychologists and public policy.

“…Politicians had discovered public opinion polling as a useful tool in managing election cam paigns, but elected and appointed public officials had little understanding of the use of scientific or statistical methods to eval uate programs, assess effectiveness, or identify changes in public programs that might benefit stakeholders. Today (see Wilmoth, 2001), that expertise is indis pensable in the process of creating sound public policy.…”

“…In this introduction to the special section of The Psychologist-Manager Journal on Psychologists and Public Policy (Lowman, 2001), the author briefly reviews the history of involvement of psychologists in public policy, noting its relative recency. The author highlights aspects of the articles by DeLeon, Eckert, & Wilkins (2001), Elias (2001), Kiesler (2001), Nelson (2001), Turkkan (2001), and Wilmoth (2001) in the special section.…”