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The wording of university academic job advertisements can reflect a commitment to equity (affirmative action) as opposed to academic merit in hiring decisions. The method of judgemental content analysis was applied by having three judges rate 810 Australian tenure-stream advertisements on seven-point magnitude scales of equity and merit. The influence of time (Years: 1970-1973; 1984-1987; 2000-2003), institution (major research universities, the self-designated Group of Eight (Go8); colleges of advanced education and institutes of technology; regional and distance education institutions), as well as academic discipline (physical sciences and technology; social sciences; humanities) on ratings were also examined. Inter-rater reliabilities were high ([greater than or equal to] 0.92), and the "equivalence hypothesis" (that merit and equity are the same) was not supported. Merit and equity criteria increased over time and were influenced by institution type and academic discipline, although in different ways. While some effects could be viewed as being due to rational policy decisions, other significant effects suggested influences that are more difficult to explain. University administrators need to be sensitive to the balance between merit and equity when formulating hiring policies. (Contains 3 figures.)

This paper reports sex differences in cognitive task performance that emerged when 39 Australian university undergraduates (19 men, 20 women) were asked to solve verbal (lexical) and visual-spatial cognitive matching tasks which varied in difficulty and visual field of presentation. Sex significantly interacted with task type, task difficulty, laterality, and changes in performance across trials. The results revealed that the significant individual-differences' variable of sex does not always emerge as a significant main effect, but instead in terms of significant interactions with other variables manipulated experimentally. Our results show that sex differences must be taken into account when conducting experiments into human cognitive-task performance. DOI 10.2466/PMS.110.2.396-410

The wording of university academic job advertisements can reflect a commitment to equity (affirmative action) as opposed to academic merit in hiring decisions. The method of judgemental content analysis was applied by having three judges rate 810 Australian tenure-stream advertisements on seven-point magnitude scales of equity and merit. The influence of time (Years: 1970-1973; 1984-1987; 2000-2003), institution (major research universities, the self-designated Group of Eight (Go8); colleges of advanced education and institutes of technology; regional and distance education institutions), as well as academic discipline (physical sciences and technology; social sciences; humanities) on ratings were also examined. Inter-rater reliabilities were high (≥0.92), and the equivalence hypothesis' (that merit and equity are the same) was not supported. Merit and equity criteria increased over time and were influenced by institution type and academic discipline, although in different ways. While some effects could be viewed as being due to rational policy decisions, other significant effects suggested influences that are more difficult to explain. University administrators need to be sensitive to the balance between merit and equity when formulating hiring policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]