I think it's better to notice that you're dealing with a quadratic equation here.
k^2 + k - 2 = (k + 2)(k - 1).
Then you just apply that age-old rule:
When we have a quadratic equation:
ax^2 + bx + c
then the sign of it will be a's sign sign when not between the roots and the opposite of a's sign between the roots
In this particular case, a = 1, so a is positive. The roots will be -2 and 1, so if k is in (-2, 1), the sign of the quadratic will be minus. When k is (-infinite, -2) U (1, infinite), then the sign will be plus.
This is why you need both stmts to solve this one: if k is between -1 and 1, then it will also be between -2 and 1, so you can safely say that the quadratic is negative.