Figure 3 Ratings of the frequency with which superior performance leads to certain outcomes The questions used to measure the extent of role pressures on ALJS were similar to those used in a nationwide survey conducted several years ago. They were concerned principally with work overload and role conflict and ambiguity. Each of these has been shown to reduce productivity. Figure 4 presents the responses of the judges to the questions about role pressures. As can be seen from the figure, judges at SSA and ICC experience the most pressures from their role. Interestingly though, the types of pressures at the two agencies appear to be different. At SSA, the pressures have to do with the amount of work and the time and resources available to do it. On the other hand, pressures at ICC have to do with agency review of ALJ decisions. Role pressures are least for Coast Guard judges who report rarely or almost never being bothered by 4 of the 10 pressure producing role characteristics. Everyone occasionally feels bothered by certain kinds of things in their work. Below is a list of things that might sometimes bother Administrative Law Judges. Please indicate how frequently you feel bothered by each of them. (44-1) Thinking that the amount of work you have to do may interfere with how well it gets done. (44-2) Feeling that you have too little authority to carry out the responsibilities assigned to you. (44-3) Feeling that you can't get information needed to carry out your work. (44-4) Thinking that there are too many reviews of your work by agency officials. (44-5) Feeling that you have to do things in your work that are against your better judgment. (44-6) Feeling that your job tends to interfere with your family life. LABOR (5)(4) (3)1 [2] [1] ICC (44-7) Feeling that you're not fully qualified to handle your work. (44-8) Feeling that you have too heavy a work load. (44-9) Thinking that agency officials who review your work aren't nearly as qualified as you are. (44-10) Thinking that others who perform your type of work (e.g. District Court Judges) are accorded more deference than you are. Case processing characteristics Judges in the 13 agencies selected for more intensive analysis differ most among themselves in factors closely associated with the unique type of cases settled in each agency. Thus, the amount of time required to decide a typical case in FPC, CAB, FTC, and FCC (over 390 days on the average) is four times longer than the time required to decide a case in SSA, the Coast Guard, or the Department of Labor (56 to 98 days). There are even more striking differences in the number of transcript pages and number of witnesses typically involved in cases at the agencies. As can be seen in table 2, there are 30 times more pages of transcript in a typical FCC or FTC hearing than in an SSA or Coast Guard hearing, and there are almost eight times as many witnesses in an FTC hearing as in an SSA hearing. We asked a number of questions about the characteristics of cases with which ALJS were personally involved and which varied in length from unusually short through unusually long. There were 19 characteristics on which data were collected for short, typical, and long cases. Many of these are characteristics hypothesized by the Administrative Conference to effect judicial productivity or are intended to apply to "the typical formal administrative proceeding." In order to simplify discussion of case processing characteristics, we performed a special statistical analysis designed to identify the minimum number of dimensions needed to describe the judges' responses. 11/ The results of the analysis are presented in table 3 and can be interpreted as follows: the characteristics listed under a dimension tend to occur together--so that when one is present, the others tend to be present too; and when one increases in value, the others tenu to increase also. Thus, using dimension 4 as an example, as the number of parties involved in a short case increases, the number of witnesses increases as well. Moreover, the number of parties and witnesses are somewhat unique in that they are closely related to each other but are not related to any other case characteristic we measured. |