Designing for performance,Part 1: Aligning your HPT decisions from top to bottom

Wanting to improve individual and organizational performance is a worthwhile ambition. Yet your success in accomplishing this relies heavily on the suitable selection, design, and development of performance technologies. Only when capable performance technologies are systematically aligned with the desired results of your organization and its partners will you achieve sustainable performance improvements. In this article, the first of a three‐part series, you will find a systematic process for initiating the design of a performance system that will accomplish useful results. From identifying the performance expectations of internal and external partners to justifying the performance objectives you establish as guides for future decision making, the systematic processes described in this article will provide you with the initial tools for successfully selecting an integrated set of performance technologies that have the capacity to accomplish valuable results.     

Designing for performance,PART 3: Design,develop, and improve

In this final of three articles on how to design for performance, you will find practical steps and useful tools for developing the performance technologies that make up a performance improvement system. Use these systemic and systematic processes as the starting place in creating performance technologies that achieve the strategic performance objectives of your organization and its partners. Then improve on these processes by customizing them for the specialized Human Performance Technology (HPT) solutions you have selected for your performance improvement efforts.     

Restoring executive confidence in performance improvement

Many organizations have significantly decreased their investment in performance improvement initiatives because they believe they are too risky. In fact, organizations should invest in performance improvements to build cash reserves and gain market share. Recent scientific breakthroughs have led to the development of methodologies and technologies that enable organizations to predictably, quickly, and completely improve performance at low risk and cost. This article presents these new approaches.     

Improving network service performance and reliability via links trunking technologies

INTRODUCTION Because of the critical role that computing sys-tems and networks play in today’s business envi-ronment, it is not surprising that business success often goes to the company with the best information and the most efficient process for delivering that in-formation. As the principal tool for business col-laboration, corporate LANs are a vital resource in enabling today’s enterprises to adopt competitive strategies. The number of users wanting to share and access data across…     

Computer technology-cognitive psychology interface and science performance assessment

The emerging interface between computer technology and cognitive psychology for performance assessment in science education is explored. Cognitive theories of learning offer promises to transform computer technology from a test administration tool into a process assessment tool, and computer technology offers a medium for studying the cognitive processes of learning. Interface theories and interface technologies are briefly discussed. The technology-psychology interface may be a base for building an alternative assessment technology. Some prototype projects in this line of inquiry are presented. As in any other novel approaches to testing, there are several questions that need to be answered in establishing the role of the technology-psychology interface in performance assessment.     

Student performance in computing education: an empirical analysis of online learning in programming education environments

The benefits of using online exercises have been analysed in terms of distance learning, automatic assessment and self-regulated learning. In this study, we have not found a direct proportional relationship between student performance in the course exercises that use online technologies and the exam grades. We see that the average submission rate to these online exercises is not positively correlated with the exercise points. Yet, our results confirm that doing exercises along supports student learning and skill accumulation equipping them with the knowledge of programming. While the student performance in programming courses is affected by factors such as prior background in programming, cognitive skills and the quality of teaching, completing the course exercises via learning-by-doing is an indispensable part of teaching. Based on the student feedback from the course survey, the students are highly satisfied with using online technologies as part of learning.     

Resource use and academic performance among first year psychology students

Multiple questionnaires completed over the semester by 514 students enrolled in a first year psychology course reveal that no single pattern of reliance on print, online, or in-person resources guarantees a high mark. Analyses of the reported and measured frequency of use of various resources correlated against students’, performance on both individual assessments and their final marks suggests that students employ a range of strategies in their use of class resources. They tend to rely on their textbooks, Web-based lecture notes, and online quizzes, but their final marks are more strongly determined by their university entrance scores than by their resource use strategy, their sex, or whether or not English is their first language. The data suggest that students adapt their learning strategies to the resources available, with an apparent emphasis on learning what will be assessed rather than exploring for understanding. Importantly, the results argue that investment in development of educational technologies – and students’, use of educational technologies – must be informed by empirical data concerning its impact on the efficiency and quality of learning.     

Email dialogue journaling: attitudes and impact on L2 reading performance

With the rapid development of technologies, online learning, especially email dialogue journaling, has been playing an increasingly important role in foreign language learning and teaching in recent years. While many studies have examined the effect of email learning on student learning performance, few have looked into students’ attitudes towards email application and its impact on their learning outcomes. Positive user attitudes (high self‐efficacy) have been considered critical factors that contribute to the subsequent and successful academic performance. By integrating email for the reading learning process, this study developed an electronic‐based peer collaborative environment to explore students’ attitudes towards email application in reading classes. Specifically, the relationship between students’ self‐efficacy and their reading performance was examined. The results demonstrate that most students maintain positive attitudes towards the potential outcomes of email application on reading achievement. Furthermore, the feature of electronic discussion has a greater direct effect on the reading enhancement. Implications of certain designs of email tasks for an enhanced second language reading development are presented.     

Using digital technologies and contemporary psychometrics in the assessment of performance on complex practical tasks

There is a critical need for research into the use of digital technologies to support the assessment of performance on complex tasks in schools. This paper reports on a component of a pilot study aimed at investigating the use of digital forms of performance assessment, manageable within schools, with high levels of reliability and capable of being scaled up for statewide implementation. Student practical performances were represented in digital files, placed in an online repository and marked using both a standards‐reference and comparative pairs method. It was found that the short performance tasks exam was readily implemented and the work easily marked. The resulting scores were shown to be highly reliable and well correlated when compared with the other case studies and suitable for ranking students. However, the limitations of the tasks, time and scaffolding of the tasks reduced the study’s validity in assessing student capability in the course. Overall the results were encouraging and provide a basis for a larger and longer study that has commenced.     

A systematic review of immersive technology applications for medical practice and education - Trends,application areas,recipients, teaching contents,evaluation methods,and performance

Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (XR) are examples of immersive technologies that have the potential to improve medical practice and education. As a result, they have recently sparked much research interest. However, there are few reviews related to the use of immersive technologies (including VR, AR, MR, and XR) in medical practice and education. Remarkably, six research questions related to the trends, application areas, recipients, teaching contents, evaluation methods, and performance remain unanswered. To this end, this study conducts a systematic review to analyse 128 articles from 2012 source papers, all of which are indexed in the Web of Science. The review results indicate that immersive technology is currently used primarily on surgery and anatomy-related subjects for doctors, medical students and interns. Furthermore, group experiments are the most commonly used data collection method. The results provide insights into the current research trends related to immersive technology applications for medical practice and education. They also serve as an essential reference for scholars in the medical practice and education contexts.     

Effect of the use of instructional anatomy videos on student performance

Medical schools have reduced the time allotted to anatomy instruction. Consequently, schools engage students in more independent settings using information and communication technologies (ICT). There has been limited research in the use of video aids, a type of ICT, to enhance anatomy examination performance. The objective of this study is to describe the design, usage, and effect on examination performance of eight locally developed instructional anatomy videos. First‐year UCSF medical students (n = 141) had access to the videos. They reported their video usage, reason for usage, and satisfaction. The prior year students (n = 141) served as a historical control group. Anatomy and radiology examination performance was compared between groups while controlling for prior performance. The students with and without access to the videos did not differ in examination performance. Sixty‐one (43%) students in the experimental group responded to the survey. Of these, 79% reported using at least one video, viewing an average of 4.75 of the eight videos. They watched 3.27 (SD = 1.57, range 1–5) of the five anatomy videos and 1.48 (SD = 1.35; range 0–3) of the three radiology videos. In a regression analysis controlling for age and MCAT scores, using the anatomy videos at least once improved anatomy examination performance by 3.4% (P‐value = 0.007). There was no relationship between radiology video usage and radiology exam score. Video resource availability did not enhance student performance in anatomy and radiology. However, when analyzing performance for those whom we knew level of video use, there was a statistically different and higher anatomy achievement. Anat Sci Ed, 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.     

Essential knowledge for academic performance: Educating in the virtual world to promote active learning

Education has traditionally focused on the importance of content, and has guided curriculum design according to this principle. While content knowledge is important, to excel in the labor market today graduates need to develop procedural knowledge, with greater emphasis on capacity development for transferable skills. This need is amplified by emergent technologies, which increase the demand to develop knowledge in this domain. To disentangle and measure the impact of content and procedural knowledge on academic achievement, the study occurred in a virtual setting. Based on the findings, we provide recommendations for course designers and course developers to improve students‟ performance.     

Impact of classroom design on teacher pedagogy and student engagement and performance in mathematics

A resurgence in interest in classroom and school design has highlighted how little we know about the impact of learning environments on student and teacher performance. This is partly because of a lack of research methods capable of controlling the complex variables inherent to space and education. In a unique study that overcame such difficulties by using a single-subject research design in one Queensland school, open and flexible classroom arrangements, together with an infusion of one-on-one technologies, improved student perceptions of the quality of teaching and students’ levels of engagement. Separate statistical analysis also indicated significant differences in these students’ performance in mathematics when compared to like peers in more ‘traditional’ classrooms. The paper ends with a caution; on these measures, the classroom design is certainly one, but probably not the only, influence.     

A comprehensive performance analysis and improvement method

Performance analysis and improvement are critical skills for the performance technologist. A comprehensive approach to these tasks, which includes techniques from industrial and organizational psychology, industrial engineering, and organizational behavior management, is described. The approach comprises four steps: (1) conducting an organization‐wide survey to identify general improvement areas, (2) objectively pinpointing performance improvement potentials, (3) systematically identifying performance constraints, and (4) selecting or designing an improvement technique. Survey results for 63 organizations are presented and the effect of management practices on management span of control are examined. Eighteen performance constraints are organized into a decision tree that is used to select 1 of 27 improvement techniques. The results of this approach to performance analysis and improvement are described for 58 improvement projects in a medium‐sized bank.     

Surviving the performance management of academic work: evidence from young Chinese academics

ABSTRACT

Despite predominant macro-level changes of performance management at Chinese universities, little attention has been paid to how the disciplinary technologies have been interpreted and enacted at the level of individual academics. Using qualitative data with 26 participants at a Chinese research university, this study provides evidence of collective compliance with the performative imperatives. The study indicates that tacit compliance has been reinforced through the coercive powers of reward, punishment, and bureaucratization and consolidated through the normative influences of the Chinese Confucian culture and subjectification via creating new notions of ‘academic success’. Moreover, the process of perverse learning, during which opportunistic behaviors are taken to ‘play the game’, has contributed to the emergence of performance paradox. In addition, the findings do not indicate any vocal resistance in public but conscientious efforts have been taken in private by some of the participants to navigating through the performance paradox in order to alleviate the dysfunctional consequences caused by the perverse learning.     

Online Technologies Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulated Learning as Predictors of Final Grade and Satisfaction in College-Level Online Courses

This study was designed to examine performance as a function of grade and course satisfaction in online undergraduate level courses, specifically students' self-efficacy for online technologies and self-regulated learning strategies. This research included a sample (N = 815) of community college students enrolled in liberal arts online courses during a single semester. The results of this study showed that online technologies self-efficacy scores were not correlated with student performance. Of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire subscales, time and study environment and effort regulation were significantly related to performance. Students who scored higher on these subscales received higher final grades. In addition, rehearsal, elaboration, metacognitive self-regulation, and time and study environment were significantly positively correlated with levels of satisfaction.     

A performance technologist's approach to process performance improvement

Process performance management provides detailed understanding of the design of a process to improve performance. This article highlights a process performance model aligned with the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) steps of the Six Sigma model, but with additional substeps to guide process improvement. It thus identifies process improvement as one of the key tools in the performance technologist's toolkit and provides recommendations for methods, practices, and tools.     

The performance evaluation of corporate universities

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the phenomenon of corporate universities from the perspective of the evaluation of their performance. Corporate universities have a hybrid nature that can be referred to both as a business unit and as a higher education institution. Having reviewed the literature on corporate universities and performance evaluation of these kind of entities, we present the results of a survey on Italian corporate universities. Results shows that an appropriate framework for the evaluation of corporate university performance need to distinguish among the different types of corporate universities that are actually in place according to their mission and degree of openness to the external environment.     

Blocking student performance in high school?

Block schedules have been used in several different high schools in various areas of the United States. Reasons for their use vary from better preparing students for college work to fewer disruptions of the school day. Several studies have examined the impact of changing from a semester system to a block system on the academic performance in specific areas with varying results. This paper examines the impact of a change of schedule on overall academic performance as measured by a student’s Grade Point Average. This study indicates that for the specific case studied, the change in systems did have a positive effect on performance.     

Integrating Knowledge Management Systems,Electronic Performance Support Systems,and Learning Technologies

The field of training and development has been increasingly affected by knowledge management, performance support, and learning technologies, yet the impact of these disciplines has typically been disjointed and uncoordinated. Projects in each of the disciplines are often implemented systematically, but not systemically. To take full advantage of their potential to improve performance, we must develop the possible synergies that exist among them. In this paper, we aim to develop a theoretical argument for integrating electronic performance support systems (EPSS), knowledge management systems (KMS), and learning technologies as well as to create a conceptual model for the integration. This understanding will guide training and development professionals in developing more systemic performance improvement interventions. We start with an overview of KMS, EPSS, and learning technologies. We then examine the intersection of these areas and present a rationale for integrating the three technologies under the framework of Human Performance Technology (HPT). Finally, we propose a conceptual model for the integration and discuss its technical and organizational implications.