Staff profile

Professor Jim McLennan

Adjunct Professor

Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering

School of Psychological Science
Department of Psychology
Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre

Biological Sciences 2 Building, room 255, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

BA Hons USYD., MA ANU., PhD Monash.

Area of study

Psychology

Brief Profile

 Professor McLennan began his professional career as an industrial/organisational psychologist, first with the Navy and then with the Commonwealth public service. He subsequently moved, via occupational psychology, into counselling psychology, in which field he worked for some 25 years as practitioner, educator, and researcher.

In the course of his research, much of which involved telephone-based help services, he became increasingly interested in how people made decisions: both to seek, and to offer, help. This rekindled his interest from early days in safety-related decision making and in the mid-1990s, in collaboration with Dr Mary Omodei, he began to work with the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade investigating decision making by on-scene Incident Controllers. This led to various research studies concerning decision making with: the Defence Science and Technology Organisation—Air Operations, and Marine Operations, the Office of Corrections; and CFA.

In 2004 he joined the School as a senior Research Fellow, managing the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Volunteerism Project and working on the Firefighter Safe Behaviour and Decision Making Project. Since the 2009 Black Saturday Victorian bushfires he has been working as a member of the Bushfire CRC Task Force undertaking research in the aftermath.

Research interests

Cognitive and developmental psychology

- Emergency management and decision making

- Emotional and cognitive self-control in survival-related decision making

- The role of anticipation in managing complex tasks

Recent Publications

Omodei, M. M., & McLennan, J. (2000). Conceptualising and measuring global interpersonal mistrust-trust. Journal of Social Psychology, 140, 279-294.

Dickson, J., McLennan, J., & Omodei, M. M. (2000). Effects of concurrent verbalization on a time-critical dynamic decision-making task. Journal of General Psychology, 127, 217-228..

McLennan, J., Pavlou, O., Kelin, P., & Omodei, M. (2005). Using video during training to enhance learning of emergency incident command and control skills. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 20 (3), 10-14.

Beatson, R., & McLennan, J. (2005). Australia’s women volunteer fire fighters: A literature review and research agenda. Australian Journal on Volunteering, 10(2), 18-27.

McLennan, J., & Birch, A. (2005). A potential crisis in wildfire emergency response capability? Australia’s volunteer fire fighters. Environmental Hazards, 6(2), 101-107.

McLennan, J., Holgate, A. M., Omodei, M. M., & Wearing, A. J. (2006). Decision making effectiveness in wildfire incident management teams. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 14, 27-37.

Birch, A. & McLennan, J. (2007). Who’s interested? The NSW Grain Belt community survey about volunteering with the NSW Rural Fire Service. Australian Journal on Volunteering, 12(1), 14-25.

McLennan, J., Birch, A, Beatson, R., & Cowlishaw, S. (2007). Recruiting and retaining Australia’s women volunteer firefighters: Some research evidence. Australian Journal on Volunteering, 12(2), 59-69.

Cowlishaw, S., Evans, L., & McLennan, J. (2008). Families of fire service volunteers. Rural Society, 18, 17-25.

McLennan, J., Birch, A., Cowlishaw, S., & Hayes, P. (2008). I quit! Leadership and satisfaction with the volunteer role: Resignations and organisational responses. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual APS Conference. pp. 215-218.

McLennan, J. & Birch, A. (2008). Why would you do it? Age and motivation to become a fire service volunteer. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Organisational Psychology, 1, 8-12.

Cowlishaw, S., McLennan, J., & Evans, L. (2008). Volunteer firefighting and family life: An organisational perspective on conflict between volunteer and family roles. Australian Journal on Volunteering, 13(2), 21-31.

McLennan, J. & Birch, A. (2009). Age and motivation to become an Australian volunteer firefighter. International Journal of Mass Emergencies ,and Disasters, 27 53-65.

McLennan, J., Birch, A., Cowlishaw, S., & Hayes, P. (in press). Maintaining volunteer firefighter numbers: Adding value to the retention coin. Australian Journal of Emergency Managemen