Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Writing from an academic and small business perspective, Zhou and colleagues (2024) shed light on the scientist-practitioner gap in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and invite collegial debate by delineating seven multifaceted questions in their focal article.In our commentary, we discuss these questions and espouse the following viewpoints: (a) the scientist-practitioner gap is indeed overstated; (b) changing the way that journal articles are written for the sake of reaching a wider audience would require additional training of doctoral students, learning new methodological skills, and putting more pressure on tenure-track faculty; (c) the scientistpractitioner gap does not matter to any of the four types of I-O psychologists (Olenick et al., 2018); and (4) the scientist-practitioner gap is not an individual actor problem. Is the scientist-practitioner gap overstated?In the 1993 film Groundhog Day, actor Bill Murray portrays a television weathercaster who visits the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to report whether the local groundhog, Phil, will see his shadow, signaling another 6 weeks of winter (Almond, 2006).Murray's character continues to repeatedly relive the same day, February 2, beginning with his alarm sounding at 6:00 a.m., a cycle that continues until the end of the film (Almond, 2006;Daughton, 1996).Similarly, the scientistpractitioner gap resembles the plot that unfolds over and over in Groundhog Day, as scholars continue to relive and revisit the same overarching debate.Thus, it is unsurprising that the I-O literature is replete with studies chronicling the scientist-practitioner gap.In their work analyzing Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) programs, Brice and Waung (2001) indicated that the scientist-practitioner gap appears to be shrinking.Aguinis et al. (2017) raised a similar issue in their investigation of the typology of literature that is frequently cited in I-O textbooks.The authors noted that "39% of the 110 most frequently cited sources mentioned in I-O psychology textbooks are nonacademic journals" (Aguinis et al., 2017, p. 545), thus signaling that the scientist-practitioner gap is overemphasized.Adopting a cynical perspective, Avolio (2017) called for a moratorium on further investigation of the scientistpractitioner gap and advocated instead for both science and practice to advance the I-O field through bridge building.We echo Avolio's (2017) viewpoint and argue that Groundhog Day should come to an end for the I-O community.Should we change the way journal articles are written?Zhou et al. posited an intriguing question regarding writing journal articles in a manner that sparks engagement with those from outside one's immediate domain.We consider this notion tantamount to opening Pandora's box and therefore disagree with this premise on three grounds.
DOI: 10.1017/iop.2024.40
Author: Mark Stroud
Institution: College of Staten Island
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4404497295