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 Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:44 am
And this is why:
I'm a Grad student working in Industrial Organizational Psychology. There good and bad sides to this like any applied science, but I intend to use my powers for good, and this is how.
My dissertation of my masters (and I'll be expanding on it for my Ph.D.) will be to show that Drug testing in the work place is not an accurate predictor of either productivity or on the job accidents.
I'm looking at these two dependent variables because they are the two major proponents to drug testing. Productivity is an argument frequently used for having drug testing in the work place. Insurance companies (who are the devil) charge more for companies that don't use drug testing, because that supposedly puts them at higher risk for accidents.
Research has already been done in this area, but there a few extra things that aren't taken into consideration, these are being the drug test used, race of testes, and blue or white collar work. These are important for the following reasons:
1. Different drug testing methods are more sensitive to different drugs. Marijuana for example can stay in your urine for over a month for a heavy smoker, where as a faster metabolizing (and in my mind more concerning) drug such as cocaine stays in the system for only 24 hours. I attend to address this problem by instead asking employees if they have engaged in drug activity in the last month and asking what it was (confidentially of course).
2. In the United states current laws on hiring practices forbid the use of a employee screening measure that is biased against a race. This is illustrated in a case where a company was using a cognitive test for promotions, which they knew the uneducated minority workers could not pass. The law is obviously farther reaching, but it's a significant dent if I can show this association.
3. I have a sneaking suspicion thats not backed up by research but its worth a test. I feel that if you compare white and blue collar drug users you might find something significant. Namely, I'm thinking that professionals will not increase in accidents or have a decrease of productivity if they are drug positive.
My methods are going to be find an appropriate company, giving a questionnaire asking the employees some personal information such as whether they use drugs and what kinds and frequencies they use them. Their supervisors (who will not see these surveys) will then rate their performance over a given time period. I haven't operationaly defined performance yet, nor have I found a good definition of "accident". The supervisors will note these two data points weekly for an undetermined time period. I'll then take the data and slave over SPSS statistics software for god knows how long and see what I get. Hopefully I'll find out that drug tests suck, but I have to remain objective.
This is still in it's proposal and research phase, so I probably will have to prune away a good amount of the study. If anyone has any suggestions or comments feel free to let me know. Sorry for the long post, but I thought my fellow hippies would appreciate it. Much love.
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:15 pm
Best of luck to you, Dr. Funk.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 11:55 pm
TheArgus Best of luck to you, Dr. Funk. Best of luck to you inedeed, sir.
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 11:47 am
Good luck! You can do it! 3nodding
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Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:29 am
My Goodness, what a worthy study!!!
High Times Man of the Year, indeed!!! smile
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