Aaron Hernandez and NFL personality assessment.

TL: DR- Aaron Hernandez was an NFL player with a troubled past. He was convicted of murdering his future brother-in-law. He eventually died by suicide. So, needless to say, this is a multifaceted story to use in class. But I do think that it is appropriate to use in an I/O psychology class because it highlights all of the pre-recruitment assessment that potential NFL players completed.

Longer version:

Hernandez is in news again due to the Netflix series about Hernandez, so it might be worth using in class as it is current (again).

Here is the overtly dramatic trailer for the new film about Hernandez:

This is a multi-faceted situation, but it does have an I/O angle. When Hernandez was initially recruited to play professional football, he, as well as all of the other recruits, completed a number of workplace assessment measures (very common with NFL recruits). See this summary of part of the assessment here (source: WSJ):

Here is the whole WSJ article, and here is a PDF version of the same article. Do note: These received a fair amount of media coverage at the time and I'm sure you could find more documentation.


HOW TO USE IN CLASS:

1) The WSJ article references a consulting firm performing the personality assessment. This allows an instructor to remind their students about the different environments in which I/O psychologists work.
2) The NFL uses I/O psychology measures to assess players prior to making very important (for the team), very expensive recruiting decisions. There is even a conference about NFL assessment. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SWAG?
3) They also mention the Wunderlic. Which is a very respected inventory being used in real life.
4) Criteria: What were the specific personality qualities that the I/O psychologists measure?
5) Criteria: What are the objective criteria that NFL teams are interested in measuring in a recruit?
6) Assessment: Setting a minimum score for a given assessment measure (like the Wonderlic). 

AI in selection: One quick video to introduce the topic in a way that is accessible to under

Are curly fries linked to intelligence? The data shows that might be the case pic.twitter.com/pjdJYDHDaS

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) September 17, 2019

This is a nice, novice starting point for the BIG, big topic of using AI in hiring. I think it hooks the average college student because they have been told for YEARS to maintain a vanilla social media presence. Now? Even innocuous "Likes" can be used to judge them as applicants.

From this starting point, you can go down the rabbit hole with plenty of examples of AI in hiring, related legalities, instances when it has worked out well.

The statistics instructor in me likes the fact that the narrator stresses the fact that all of these relationships are correlational and don't imply causation. As such, this example also fits in a stats class for a very, very basic primer on data mining.

Employee self-assessment, 2nd Grade style

When it comes to self-assessment, it isn't just for middle-management.

My son's teaching sent this home with his weekly Thursday Folder. I love it, as it allows my son to reflect on what went right and what went wrong. 

I also think this could be a fun way to segue into conversations about how more companies are turning away from annual assessments and trying to assess and provide employees with more proactive training. It would also be funny to task college students with coming up with a college student version.

I know this isn't the best picture, but here is a link to a better image of the chart: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/230668812208320550/