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Dr. Palmer
Morrel-Samuels is a research psychologist with extensive training and
experience in statistical analysis and assessment design. He received a
Master of Arts degree in research methodology from the University of
Chicago, as well as a Master of Philosophy degree, and a Ph.D. in
experimental social psychology from Columbia University.
Dr.
Morrel-Samuels has conducted research for IBM, the University of Chicago
and Yale University, and has been on the faculty at Columbia University and
the University of Michigan Business School. He has lectured extensively on
the use of surveys and assessments in the workplace, and has written
articles for a broad range of publications including The Journal of
Experimental Psychology, Behavioral Research Methods, The Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology and Harvard Business Review.
Dr.
Morrel-Samuels has written skill assessments and performance appraisals for
Duke Energy, Xerox, and EDS, several of which have been patented. He
conducted a comprehensive job analysis for all 35,000 engineers in GM’s North
American Operations, and has severd as an expert witness in numerous cases
(as discussed in his 2007 Docket article, cited below.) He has been an
expert resource for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and has
briefed Congress on employee motivation and objective methods for
evaluating employee performance.
Dr. Morrel-Samuels is currently president of Employee
Motivation & Performance Assessment — a company dedicated to improving
the lives of employees and enhancing corporate profitability simultaneously
by measuring the statistical linkages between “soft” measures of the
corporate culture and “hard” metrics of objectively measured performance.
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Getting the Truth into Workplace Surveys.
Harvard Business Review, 80, 2, 111-118.
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Web Surveys’ Hidden Hazards.
Harvard Business Review, 81, 7, 16-17.
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The use of hand-drawn gestures for text editing.
International Journal of Man Machine Studies, 27, 91-102.
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Videologger: A computerized multi channel event recorder for
analyzing videotapes.
Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 20, 37-40.
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Clarifying the distinction between lexical and gestural
commands.
International Journal of Man Machine Studies, 32, 581-590.
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Cartesian Analysis: A computer-video interface for
measuring gestures without physical contact.
Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 22,466-470.
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Measuring Illegal Immigration at US Border Stations by Sampling
from a Flow of 500 Million Travelers,
Population and Environment, 23, 3, 285-302.
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Who, What, and Where: Guidelines for the
Statistical Analysis of Disparate Impact in EEO Litigation. Docket,
volume 25 (2) 2007, pp. 54-74 (With Ed Goldman)
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Leadership Assessment Tool and
Method. Patent #5795155
Method and System for Measuring Leadership Effectiveness. Patent #6007340
System for Measuring Leadership Effectiveness. Patent #5743742
Employee Assessment Tool. Patent Pending, Application #10/279159
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Most of Dr. Morrel-Samuels’s work in academia and the business
world concerns three interrelated topics: Surveys in the workplace,
computer interfaces (especially survey interfaces for the workplace), and
objective methods for measuring employee performance (an issue that
includes statistical analysis of data from the workplace.) His theoretical
work draws heavily from research on communication, and his applied work
focuses on practical methods for improving surveys and performance
appraisals in the workplace.
Dr. Morrel-Samuels has been designing and evaluating
workplace surveys for more than 20 years, and has published several
articles in Harvard Business Review on the design of surveys and
assessments for the workplace. His first HBR article, entitled, “Getting
the Truth into Workplace Surveys,” appeared in February 2002 and has been
widely cited. The article examines the merits of using surveys in the
workplace, and discusses 16 guidelines for improving their reliability,
validity, and business utility. The article contains both theoretical and
practical components; it describes (for example) the specific survey design
features that Dr. Morrel-Samuels implemented recently to improve an
executive assessment at Duke Energy – the company whose landmark loss at
the Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. 401 U.S. 424 (1971) clarified
the legal standards for workplace assessments throughout the nation.
One of Dr. Morrel-Samuels’s earliest publications appeared
in the International Journal of Man Machine Studies in 1987 during his time
as a researcher for IBM. The paper is based on a study of paper and pencil
experiments testing the use of hand-drawn gestures for text editing. The
results of this study were the basis for the development of gesture-driven
interfaces, such as those used in handheld computers like the Palm™ Pilot.
His most recent work on interface design has led to a patent-pending
interface for collecting bias-free survey data over the web. (A brief
description of the work can be found in his 2003 Harvard Business Review
article “ Web Surveys’ Hidden Hazards”.)
In the mid 1990’s Dr. Morrel-Samuels was asked to conduct a
research study for the US Department of Justice. As part of that work he
developed a method for measuring the accuracy of the INS inspections that
travelers undergo as they seek to enter the United States. Dr.
Morrel-Samuels’s system measured the accuracy of immigration inspections by
taking a small random sample of the travelers who had been approved for
entry after a conventional INS inspection, and submitting those selected
travelers to a second inspection. The results allowed the Department of
Justice to measure the accuracy of the 500 million passport inspections
that INS (now called the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services)
conducts each year at the nation’s ports of entry.
In June of
1998, Dr. Morrel-Samuels testified to Congress on the results of the study.
To the distress of many in the audience, the research showed that
approximately 4.2 million illegal immigrants enter the country each year by
passing a conventional INS inspection at a port of entry. An important
offshoot of the research was its development of a research technique for
collecting objective and accurate measures of employee performance in large-scale
settings where thousands of employees and millions of customers are
involved.
For a brief review of his recent statistical work in
litigation, see the Docket article cited above.
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Dr. Morrel-Samuels’s education, practical experience, and
distinguished authorship have made him a valuable resource for providing
expert services in legal cases where workplace surveys or assessments are
at issue. General topics include analysis of a survey’s validity,
reliability, objectivity, fairness, accuracy, confidentiality, freedom from
response bias, and conformance to The Uniform Guidelines that pertain to
all workplace assessments. In addition, he also conducts statistical
analyses of performance-related and survey-related data from companies
involved in litigation. Specific topics include:
Employee
surveys
Disparate
Impact & Disparate Treatment litigation
Litigation
requiring statistical analysis
Careful
job analysis using court-approved methodology in FLSA litigation
Performance
appraisals, job evaluations, skill assessments
Electronic
surveys and interface design, especially those used in the workplace
Program
evaluations, especially when used in hiring, firing, or other job actions
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T: (734) 433-0344
F: (734) 433-0346
C: (734) 368-3348
Dr. Palmer
Morrel-Samuels
EMPA Incorporated
Suite A
111 South Main Street
Chelsea, MI 48118
palmer@umich.edu
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