CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHY
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND PATENTS
RESEARCH INTERESTS
LEGAL EXPERT SERVICES
CONTACT
BIOGRAPHY
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.
Return to top
LIST OF SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND PATENTS
Design Of Assessments And Surveys For The Workplace
Getting the Truth into Workplace Surveys.
Harvard Business Review, 80, 2, 111-118.
Web Surveys’ Hidden Hazards.
Harvard Business Review, 81, 7, 16-17.
Computer Interface Design
The use of hand-drawn gestures for text editing.
International Journal of Man Machine Studies, 27, 91-102.
Videologger: A computerized multi channel event recorder for analyzing videotapes.
Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 20, 37-40.
Clarifying the distinction between lexical and gestural commands.
International Journal of Man Machine Studies, 32, 581-590.
Cartesian Analysis: A computer-video interface for measuring gestures without physical contact.
Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 22,466-470.
Objective Research Methods for the Workplace
Measuring Illegal Immigration at US Border Stations by Sampling from a Flow of 500 Million Travelers.
Population and Environment, 23, 3, 285-302.
Statistical Analysis in Litigation
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)
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
Return to top
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH INTERESTS AND SELECTED PAPERS
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.
Surveys 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.
Computer Interfaces and Electronic Surveys
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”.)
Objective Methods For Measuring Employee Performance
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.
Return to top
LEGAL EXPERT SERVICES
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
Dr. Palmer Morrel-Samuels
EMPA, Inc.
111 South Main Street, Suite A
Chelsea, MI 48118
Phone: (734) 433-0344
Fax: (734) 433-3046 fax
palmer [at] umich [dot] edu (email formatted to avoid spambots)
Photograph by Andrew Sacks // www.saxpix.com
Return to top