Are undergraduate students good proxies for HRM professionals? A comparison of responses in a hiring decision study
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-05-2021-0091 |
| Published date | 27 January 2022 |
| Date | 27 January 2022 |
| Pages | 221-239 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
| Author | Heather M. Clarke,Kara A. Arnold |
Are undergraduate students good
proxies for HRM professionals?
A comparison of responses in a
hiring decision study
Heather M. Clarke
Austin E. Cofrin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay,
Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA, and
Kara A. Arnold
Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
St. John’s, Canada
Abstract
Purpose –There is a dearth of human resource management (HRM) literature examining the generalizability
of research employing undergraduate student participants. The purpose of this study is to conduct an
experiment to compare the job applicant evaluations and hiring decisions of undergraduate student
participants with those of working adults with hiring experience.
Design/methodology/approach –This study employed a between-person 2 3234 experimental design:
participant group (undergraduate students or working adults with hiring experience) 3job gender-type (male
typed or female typed) 3job applicant (heterosexual female, lesbian female, heterosexual male or gay male).
Participants read descriptions of a job and a job applicant and then evaluated the applicant.
Findings –The results supported a moderated mediation model where participant group moderated the
interaction of applicant gender and job gender-type in predicting perceptions of competence, which in turn
predicted perceptions of person-job fit, likeability and respect-worthiness, which then predicted hiring
decisions. Undergraduate student participants, but not working adults with hiring experience, evaluated
female applicants applying for a male-typed job in a manner consistent with gender stereotypes and were less
likely to hire the female applicant than the male applicant.
Originality/value –To inform HRM practice, research must reflect real-world decision-making. The
literature on the roles of gender stereotypes and bias in hiring, and other important HRM decisions, relies
heavily on undergraduate student participants. Findings of this study suggest a need to further examine
whether those studies can be generalized to working adults actually making those decisions.
Keywords Undergraduate students, Gender stereotypes, Hiring decisions, Conditional process analysis
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Management scholars have called attention to the chasm dividing scholarly research and
human resource management (HRM), questioning whether research actually informs practice
(e.g. Murphy et al., 2019). Laboratory experiments are a commonly used method of
investigating factors that influence HRM-related decisions such as hiring, and one issue that
is frequently raised is whether the results of such experiments can be generalized to real-
world situations. More specifically, controversy surrounds the use of undergraduate student
participants as proxies for HRM professionals, as many doubt that the results of experiments
using student participants actually reflect phenomena occurring in the workplace.
The use of undergraduate students as participants in social science research has been
criticized for decades (e.g. McNemar, 1946).Themainargumentisthatunlessthepopulation
Hiring decision
study
221
Funding: This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Insight Development Grant.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2049-3983.htm
Received 9 May 2021
Revised 31 October 2021
Accepted 24 December 2021
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 10 No. 2, 2022
pp. 221-239
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2049-3983
DOI10.1108/EBHRM-05-2021-0091
under investigation is students, student samples are not representative of, and their responses
cannot be generalized to, the population of interest. The failure of student samples to represent
the general population is believed to result from differences between students and older adults,
including differences in cognitive skills, core self-evaluations, attitudes, behaviors and
relationships (e.g. Sears, 1986). With respect to HRM research, scholars h ave also argued that
students lack the experience, training and contextual knowledge that influences the
employment-related decisions made by HRM professionals (e.g . Landy, 2008). The use of
students as research participants is largely due to the ease of access, but some researchers have
argued theymake good subjects for management research (e.g. Locke, 1986).
Notwithstanding its long history, the undergraduate student participant debate persists
today (e.g. Hanel and Vione, 2016;Roulin, 2015) and requires greater attention. It is of critical
importance to investigate whether research employing student participants is actually
informative of the employment-related decisions made by HRM practitioners. To this end, we
conducted an experiment that examined the influence of gender stereotypes on hiring
decisions in order to compare the decisions of working adults with hiring experience with
those of undergraduate students.
Undergraduate student participants
Although there is little research examining the use of students in HRM decision-making studies,
scholars have challenged the representativeness of student samples for many years (e.g.
McNemar, 1946). The matter has also been investigated empirically. For instance, 73% of the
studies reviewed by Gordon et al. (1986) found significant differences between student and
nonstudent respondents on a number of individual-level characteristics, including personality,
perceptions, judgments, decision-making, values, attitudes and behaviors. Peterson’s (2001)
second-order meta-analysis found that student responses differed from those of nonstudents in
effect size, variance and, in some cases, directionality. More recently, Hanel and Vione (2016)
compared the responses of samples of students with those of representative samples from 59
countries on various personality and attitudinal measures. They found unpredictable
differences between students and the general public both within and across countries.
Yet some studies have foundno difference betweenresponses of studentsand nonstudents
(e.g. Dejong et al., 1988;Dickhaut, 1973;Hofstedt, 1972;Mock, 1969). For example, Roulin (2015)
compared data collected from 25 samples, including samples of MTurk workers, Qualtrics panel
members, business students, psychology students and the general adult population. Roulin
found that although the psychology students’results (scores on a measure of competitive
worldviews) variedthe most from thegeneral population, the resultswere similaracross the five
sample types. Others have argued that the difference between student and nonstudent samples
is not a problem per se, if it can be identified and predicted (Hanel and Vione, 2016).
Students are typically used as samples in research studies to save money and time because
they are easier to access (Arnett, 2008;Remus, 1996). Althoughsome have argued thatstudents
serveas suitable proxiesfor managers (e.g.Dobbins et al., 1988;Locke, 1986), many have argued
that they do not (e.g. Campbell and Stanley, 1963;Cook and Campbell, 1979;Gordon et al.,1986).
Managers have experience that students typically lack (e.g. Schulz,1999). This argument applies
when we consider the use of student samples in HRM research. Landy (2008) argued that
students’lack of training, experience and contextual knowledge in HRM processes, such as
hiring, makes them inappropriate substitutes for professionals in studies of those processes.
However, the point that students differ in these ways from HRM professionals in and of itself
may not be a reason to discount findings of studies using student samples (see Heilman and
Eagly, 2008).
Scholars who defend the use of student participants argue that research related to basic
psychological processes should not be affected by the age or experience of the sample. Another
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