Frank Leo Schmidt

SCHMIDT, HOHL, MCHARGUE, QUAST, RAGAN

Posted By: Sarah Fletcher (email)
Date: 8/31/2021 at 07:33:12

Frank Leo Schmidt, 77, died Saturday, August 21st at UIHC following a sudden illness.

Funeral Services will be held at 10 AM, September 1, 2021, Wednesday, at Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service, Iowa City. Rev. Mel Schlachter will officiate. Burial will be at Oakland Cemetery. Visitation will be August 31st, 2021, Tuesday, from 5 to 7 PM at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the Frank & Lisa Schmidt Educational Program, 4285 Westchester Dr. NE, Unit B, Cedar Rapids, IA 52402; SIOP Foundation - Schmidt-Hunter Meta-Analysis Award, https://www.siop.org/Foundation/Ways-to-Donate ‘FDN Schmidt-Hunter Award’; National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Johnson County 702 S. Gilbert St., Iowa City, IA, 52240 www.namijc.org/donate_now/; Riverside Theatre www.riversidetheatre.org/donate/

The funeral will be live streamed by way of Zoom. The Zoom link is on the Tribute Wall under Frank’s obituary page at www.lensingfuneral.com. The family requests that attendees wear masks and socially distance at the visitation and funeral.

Frank was born April 29, 1944 in Jeffersontown, KY, the son of Nick and Olivia (Hohl) Schmidt. Frank married Betty McHargue in 1966. Betty preceded him in death in 2002. Frank married Cindy Quast in 2013.

Career
Ph.D. from Purdue University (1970), Frank worked as a professor of industrial-organizational psychology at Michigan State University (1970-1974). He left a tenured job to become a research scientist at the Personnel Research and Development Center at the U.S. Civil Service Commission (now the Office of Personnel Management; 1974-1985). During this time, he also was a research professor at George Washington University. He was recruited by the College of Business at the University of Iowa for a chaired professorship in management in 1985, where he remained until his retirement in 2012 when he was awarded emeritus professor status. During his Iowa tenure, he also developed a close association with Gallup Organization, serving as a senior scientist (1993-2021), where he produced important research on the organizational impact of human resources practices.

Professional Contributions
Frank Schmidt was a paradigm-shifting scientist, a father of modern meta-analytic techniques, and an ardent and intellectually honest researcher of individual differences. His contributions not only transformed entire fields of psychological and management inquiry but also extended to hundreds of other fields where psychometric meta-analyses have become the bedrock of scientific knowledge.
Frank follows in death his closest collaborator, and professional soulmate Jack Hunter who passed away in 2002. Together, Frank and Jack developed systematic and quantitative techniques to look across numerous studies and collectively test generalizability of their conclusions, which they referred to as Validity Generalization (VG). Their research revealed that study-to-study differences were due to various statistical and measurement problems, such as sampling error, range restriction, and measurement error. When they applied their newly developed techniques, they could show that contradictory findings across studies were artifactual: cognitive ability tests displayed substantial validity for job performance, across jobs, organizations, industries and settings. Later, these types of studies were also used to establish generalizability of research findings across cultures. Over time, Frank, his collaborators, students, and other scientists relying on the same techniques studied usefulness and generalizability of virtually all types of tests and assessments used for employee decisions. Application of these techniques, now referred to as meta-analysis, in other areas of work psychology and management significantly advanced scientific knowledge pertaining to workplaces and evidence-based practice.
The influence of Frank’s work extended far beyond work psychology and management, leading to applications of meta-analysis in all areas of psychological inquiry, resulting in an epistemological paradigm shift in how scientific knowledge is created and updated. Furthermore, the impact of meta-analysis extended to diverse disciplines. In less than half a century, meta-analysis has become an indispensable tool in conducting research throughout the sciences, including the natural sciences, life sciences, mathematics, medical research, and even the arts. Frank’s development and continuous improvements of meta-analysis methods, detailed in his four highly influential and widely cited books and numerous research articles, are considered to be his greatest scientific achievement. For fifty years, Frank, in his own fields of work psychology and management, researched and demonstrated the potent and persistent role that individual differences play in the prediction of job performance and other workplace behaviors and outcomes. These individual differences are primarily general mental ability (i.e., general intelligence) and job knowledge as well as other non-cognitive variables (e.g., integrity and personality). Most notably, Frank’s research greatly helped establish general mental ability as the single best predictor of employee performance.

Professional Awards
For his achievements and contributions, Frank was honored with numerous awards including the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Application of Psychology (2013), the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology (with Jack Hunter; 1994), the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award (also with Jack Hunter; 1995) and the inaugural Dunnette Prize (2015) from the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, the Distinguished Career Award for Research Contributions to Human Resources (1995) and Research Methods (2002) from the Academy of Management, the Association for Psychological Science James McKeen Cattell Award for Scientific Contributions to Applied Psychology (2008), and the Michael R. Losey Human Resource Research Award (2005) from the Society for Human Resource Management. The Losey Award was given to Frank because of the practical usefulness of his research for HR practices, mostly notably, staffing. In 2016, with a substantial donation from Frank, SIOP Foundation announced a yearly Schmidt-Hunter Meta-Analysis Award, recognizing outstanding meta-analyses in work psychology, in his honor since 2017.

Teaching and Mentorship
Over Frank’s career, he not only advised and directed over 20 dissertations and theses and taught thousands of students in university classrooms, but also other scientists and practitioners in the workshops, tutorials, and presentations he gave. When Frank was teaching a course or a workshop, it was guaranteed to be cutting-edge, clear, and useful. Frank was a very supportive mentor. His door was always open to all students for not only professional, but also general assistance and advice. He even took an interest in, mentored, and provided career support and visibility to his academic “grandchildren” (i.e., advisees and protégés of his own advisees). He was a master who modeled what it means to be an exceptional mentor. His students and junior colleagues have many memorable and touching anecdotes of Frank being interested and involved or going out of his way to be helpful and encouraging. For all his accomplishments in teaching and mentoring, he was recognized by the Thomas A. Mahoney Mentoring Award (2011) from the Academy of Management and the Dean’s Teaching Award from the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business (2011). Many of his doctoral advisees have successful careers of their own and have received accolades.

Frank, the Legend and Mensch
Given his professional stature and accomplishments, Frank could be intimidating. He had little patience for foolishness, intellectual dishonesty, or cowardice. With a few sentences he could reduce critics’ arguments to ashes. At conferences, audiences went to sessions because they knew Frank would be in the audience. When presenters were sloppy in their work or untruthful, he would, in a Clint Eastwoodesque gait, saunter to the audience microphone, and bullseye!
Yet, none of his criticisms were ever personal. He was interpersonally gentle, caring, and considerate. Even his critics were disarmed by his irreverent humor and uninhibited curiosity. He was not judgmental and thrived on all forms of diversity -- diversity of ideas and diversity in individuals. For diversity of ideas, Frank’s instinctive reaction was enthusiastic inquisitiveness. When diversity presented itself in the backgrounds of others, Frank embraced it. He focused on each and every person individually, as a person of worth, transcending all divisions and categorizations. He was compassionate and honorable.
Frank leaves behind a momentous intellectual legacy that will continue to shape the future of work psychology and management to be sure, but also the future of science in general. He offered an elegant and quantitative way of knowing. He was greater than life. His legacy will live in those whose intellects continue to be shaped by the ideas that he introduced.

Personal Interests
Frank was an incredibly creative person. He wrote “The Importance of Being Frank”, his memoirs, in 2015, an exciting and humorous account of his life. He was an ardent hunter, collector of guns, machetes, swords, arrowheads, bowie knives, hatchets, and pocket knives. Frank wrote a short piece on how to get to heaven and said, “With all these collections, I am a shoo-in”. He even started a bourbon-tasting club that recently held its first meeting.
Frank was involved in his community, especially with mental health issues. He was active in NAMI, Johnson County. After the death of his daughter Lisa, he funded a new tutoring program for at-risk children, now known as the Frank and Lisa Schmidt Education Program, in her honor.
Frank was a loving and devoted father, who was always there for his children and extended family. His steady optimism and encouragement had positive and long-lasting effects on them.

Frank is survived by his wife, Cindy; his children, Stefanie Schmidt Ragan (Paul Ragan) of Coralville, IA and Ronald Allen Schmidt of Pleasureville, KY; three siblings, Joseph (Angela) Schmidt of Chicago, IL, Stan (Elaine) Schmidt of Chester Springs, PA, and John (Nancy) Schmidt of Saratoga Springs, NY; his sister-in-law, Wanda Schmidt of Louisville, KY; step-children, Austin Quast and Molly Quast (Angie Corbin), both of Iowa City, IA; grandchildren, Gaven, Boone, and Wren; nieces, nephews, and numerous extended family.
Frank was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Betty; his daughter, Lisa; and siblings, Steve and Mary.

Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service
 

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