Organizational routines and teaching innovations: a case study

Adopting new teaching practices, like the ‘flipped classroom’, disrupts organizational routines within the university. This paper examines flipped classroom implementation from the perspective of four stakeholder groups students, instructors, administrators, and managers), using an organizational routines lens. Disrupting established routines created risk, decreases coordination and shared understanding, and increases time and cognitive load for stakeholders. We conclude that seemingly minor innovations in teaching delivery can have major and disruptive implications for the wider institution.     

Human performance modeling: A case study

Modeling critical performance elements can assist the human performance technology practitioner in better understanding the often complex, messy, and fuzzy real world of human performance. As illustrated in the embedded case study, generically developed models that, in turn, can be adapted to context‐specific applications often have the greatest practical value. The key in developing any good model is to first identify those key variables—the critical few—that truly account for the greatest variance in performance.     

Organizational defenses against the anxiety of terminal illness: a case study

Working with the dying is a task which generates enormous anxiety in the caregiver as well as the entire organization which has taken on this assignment. This case study deals with a chronic care hospital and the organizational defense mechanisms observed by a consultant hired to do staff training and development. Further, there is a discussion of the training model devised to provide a facilitative means of tapping those defenses and working through the anxiety.     

From training to performance: A case study

Faced with the prospect of engaging nearly two thousand employees before the situation became urgent, this case study shares why the best interests of employees, customers, and shareholders are neither disparate nor a zero‐sum game. It also shows how it takes passionate leadership coupled with proven HPT principles to unlock synergies. Its hallmarks are high employee engagement, quality customer interaction, and improved profitability.     

Bridging the performance gap with ergonomics: A case study

Faced with increased incidences of work‐related strain and sprain injuries and OSHA‐recordable injuries, the organization in this case study details how it resolved these performance‐related issues. This case study also demonstrates the effectiveness of Thomas Gilbert's (1978) Behavior Engineering Model as a tool for analyzing, defining, and resolving performance issues.     

High school grades and university performance: A case study

A critical issue facing a number of colleges and universities is how to allocate first year places to incoming students. The decision to admit students is often based on a number of factors, but a key statistic is a student's high school grades. This paper reports on a case study of the subsequent performance at the University of Winnipeg of high school students from 84 Manitoba high schools. By tracking the university performance of students admitted for the years 1997–2002, we are able to estimate the likelihood of success of subsequent students based on their characteristics as well as their high school grades. In doing so, we use a number of alternative estimators including a Least Squares Dummy Variable Model and a Hierarchical Linear Model. The methodology should be of interest to admissions officers at other universities as an input into estimating the subsequent performance of first year students.     

Linking versus searching: A case study of performance support use

In highly competitive global organizations, the practice of hit‐and‐miss searching for information is a luxury seldom afforded. This article examines a case study of an organization that explored the use of different types of performance support interventions for four years. Results show that performance support systems that link to relevant support content were used significantly more than systems that required the performer to search for and locate information. A comparison of these findings with the existing literature and the implications of these results for performance technologists are discussed.     

Analyzing time‐critical team motor skill performance: A case study

The ability to improve team motor skill performance is predicated on the corresponding ability to accurately identify areas for improvement. Unfortunately, in many time‐critical, rapid‐paced environments, accurately identifying areas for improvement is often problematic. The technique described in this case study seeks to overcome these difficulties in a systematic manner by employing a video‐recorded, mapping‐and‐measurement‐based approach that can discern details normally missed by human observation.     

Using Six Sigma for performance improvement in business curriculum: A case study

During the last few decades, a number of quality improvement methodologies have been used by organizations. This article provides a brief review of the quality improvement literature related to academia and a case study using Six Sigma methodology to analyze students' performance in a standardized examination. We found Six Sigma to be an effective tool for curriculum improvement and team building. The challenges and benefits of using Six Sigma are discussed.     

Customer experience and value: A performance view

Companies often say they are customer focused, which presumably means that their operational processes and cultural practices are aligned to maximize the value delivered to customers, but how do you assure that? Two factors that contribute to customer perceptions of the quality of product or service are functional quality, how well a product or service meets customer needs, and behavioral quality, how the customer feels about using or owning the product or service. There are also functional and behavioral factors that contribute to customers' perceptions of costs. Considering these factors we have developed a performance model to aid in the pursuit of greater customer value.     

Organizational and professional socialization: its impact on the performance of new administrators

While interest in holding administrators accountable for school effectiveness has increased over the past decade, the quality of evaluation systems and corresponding assessments of their performance has not. Few empirical studies have focused on evaluating the performance of new administrators as they carry out important functions of their role, so little is known about the process of socialization and how it may affect the beginning administrator's job performance. The purpose of this study was to propose and test a model of socialization factors that may be related to the evaluation of new elementary and secondary assistant principals' job performance. These factors were grouped into three major sets: individual demographics, professional socialization (i.e., type of administrative preparation), and organizational socialization (e.g., school context). Results of the LISREL covariance structure analysis supported the proposed theoretical model, indicating that organizational socialization directly affected administrative performance. In contrast, the effect of professional socialization on performance was mostly indirect. Moreover, independent of socialization, women in the study were rated as more effective than men. While most of the variation in performance observed was very likely due to individual differences, the findings suggest the importance of considering how an individual is socialized into the profession and the specific school when appraising performance.     

Educational opportunities and academic performance: A case study of university student mothers in Venezuela

The transformation of universities from elite to mass models in developing countries has given the opportunity to new social groups to participate in higher education. As a part of this process, diverse groups of students have benefited in different ways from the equal educational opportunities offered to them. In this paper, we approach the problem of institutional efficiency versus social inclusion in a developing country through the case study of the academic performance of a social group of recent participation in a public university in Venezuela, especifically that of student mothers in the Universidad de Los Andes. This work investigates how student mothers make use of the educational opportunities opened to them and how their academic performance is affected by their particular life circumstances. Evidence shows that the academic performance of student mothers is lower than that of other groups of university students. In practice, student mothers participate as part-time students, although this category is not officially recognized by most Venezuelan public universities. Almost all the life circumstances of student mothers negatively affect their academic performance. The only circumstance that contributes positively to the performance of a student mother is the help provided by her extended family in taking care of her children. The fact that student mothers are able to participate in higher education is mainly due to the help they receive from their extended family. This is a distinctive cultural feature associated to this social group in the context of a developing country such as Venezuela.     

教育用地价值变动分析研究--以河北农业大学为例

土地这种自然存在的非劳动创造的资源，是一种特殊的商品，具有价格，也存在价值。在现实中，有土地参与的经济活动中，土地都是以商品的身份在流动，土地有价格，也具有价值。教育用地价值分为实际使用价值、选择价值和存在价值三方面。     

Evaluation of Courses by Whole Student Cohorts: a case study

In a climate of unprecedented change in higher education (HE), accurate and immediate course feedback information is vital to the management of institutions, in assisting the development of course material relevant to present student needs. Student contribution to qualitative course evaluation is commonplace although use of relatively small representative groups of students is usual. However, with class sizes increasing — between 100 and 200 is now common — the ability to acquire accurate qualitative evaluation, representatively, is a major issue. This paper describes a methodology providing opportunity for whole cohort groups of students to be involved simultaneously in the generation of feedback. It considers the effectiveness of student consultation meetings as a collection method, the utility of the results in the course development process, how the issues raised and discussed compare with matters included on a university‐wide questionnaire, and whether participating students feel inhibited in discussing matters so publicly.