Analysing and training task analysis

Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) is used particularly in the context of instructional development. This paper involves two exploratory studies concerning the difficulties of those learning to perform HTA (Study 1) and how these might be overcome (Study 2). In Study 1 seventeen students were provided with declarative training in the major features of HTA and were then asked to analyse the task of making a cup of tea (task 1) or of painting a door (task 2). HTAs were analysed in terms of five HTA criteria (hierarchical representation, logical decomposition rule, logical equivalence, specification of plans and the P × C rule) and four other error categories (task boundaries incorrect, cognitive goals omitted, operations described as activities rather than goals, and lack of versatility of the analysis in terms of encompassing task variation). Errors occurred with respect to all HTA criteria and other error categories suggesting that carrying out HTA is itself a complex cognitive task. This together with an analysis of questionnaire responses concerning self-reported difficulties and strategies suggested that the tendency to use an action-oriented representation of the task being analysed might be one cause of poor performance. Study 2 investigated the effectiveness of three instructional conditions at improving analysts' performance at HTA: procedure training which specified eight main goals in carrying out HTA, criteria training which involved understanding and practice at using or recognising the five HTA criteria and types of error, and combined criteria/procedure training. Performance at HTA improved in both conditions that involved criteria training.     

Investigating the effectiveness of a learning activity supported by a mobile multimedia learning system to enhance autonomous EFL learning in authentic contexts

A learning activity supported by a mobile multimedia learning system (MMLS) was designed in this study. We aimed to test the effectiveness of the learning activity to enhance autonomous language learning in quasi-experimental Study 1 using a pretest/posttest design. Two groups participated in the learning activity: the students in a control group (n = 27) completed the activity using traditional approach whereas the students in an experimental group (n = 26) completed the activity using MMLS. The results of Study 1 showed that the experimental students outperformed their counterparts on the post-test (F = 29.602, p < 0.005, partial eta-squared = 0.372). In a non-experimental Study 2, the experimental students (n = 26) were assigned two learning tasks, the first task was completed individually and the second task in collaboration. We aimed to investigate which learning approach to complete tasks (i.e. individual vs. collaborative) enhances learning performance better by comparing students’ scores on two tasks. In addition, we explored students’ perceptions towards MMLS. The results of Study 2 showed that the students had better learning performance when they completed tasks in collaboration than individually. The results also showed that the students had high perceptions towards MMLS. Based on our results, we make suggestions and provide directions for future research.     

‘Consider the Opposite’ – Effects of elaborative feedback and correct answer feedback on reducing confirmation bias – A pre-registered study

Unbiased reasoning is considered an essential critical thinking skill that students need to possess to face the future challenges in their work and life. Confirmation bias, which is the tendency to selectively attend to information that is consistent with held beliefs, presents a significant thread to unbiased reasoning. An effective strategy to reduce confirmation bias is the ‘consider-the-opposite’-strategy (COS). The central question of this pre-registered study was whether providing elaborative, worked example feedback after COS practice would lead to a better performance on previously practised and transfer tasks than correct-answer feedback. Participants were 132 university students who took a confirmation bias pre-test, watched an instructional video on COS afterwards and next received either worked example feedback or correct answer feedback on practice tasks, practised only, watched the instruction only or received no treatment. Finally, all participants took a learning test assessing their skill to avoid confirmation bias, and a transfer test assessing whether they could apply this acquired skill to problems containing other biases. Results revealed no differences on the learning test between both feedback conditions, but students who received feedback scored significantly higher on the confirmation bias problems than students who did not receive feedback. We carried out our pre-registered analysis plan, but due to the low reliability of particularly the pre-test, we carried out an additional exploratory analysis on subsets of post-test items and a subset of transfer test items. Results on learning revealed the same pattern as the planned analyses. However, we found no differences between any of the conditions on transfer.     

The negative impact of goal-oriented instructions

The phrasing of task instructions can facilitate or hinder the learning process. In this study, three groups of participants (N = 526) performed a foreign vocabulary memorization task, with modified instructions for each group. The instructions were either learning oriented, encouraging participants to improve their abilities; outcome oriented, prompting participants to achieve a positive evaluation of their performance; or neutral, with no goal orientation, for the control group. Participants’ performance in the task was measured along with several factors pertinent to the learning process. Results showed that learning-oriented instructions led to lower performance levels, while outcome-oriented instructions reduced participants’ language risk-taking, both of which negatively impact learning. The control group had the best overall results, indicating that it is better to refrain from using goal-oriented instructions in learning tasks.     

Statistical Studies of a College Freshman Testing Program

"ABSTRACT In an investigation of the improvement of mastery learning techniques through instruction based on a validated learning hierarchy, it was found that it was highly effective to present tasks in a sequence consistent with the requirements of the hierarchy, and to require learners to demonstrate clearly their achievement of each task in turn before being allowed to proceed to the next. With this technique, nearly all of a group of relatively young students were able to perform the skill better than a group of students three grades higher who had been taught the skill as part of their normal lessons.     

Effects of increased teacher support on young children's learning.

6 groups of middle-class children (N = 116) received training in a motor skill, skipping, and a cognitive task, conservation of substance, under 2 conditions of teacher supportive behavior. Children in 3 treatment groups received instruction under the condition of increased teacher support, while instruction was given with nonvaried teacher support to 3 control groups. Experimental and control group gain scores on the 2 learning tasks were compared. Findings suggested that preschool children, especially girls, benefit significantly by increased teacher support in learning a motor skill, but greater gain was made in the cognitive area when receiving training under the condition of nonvaried teacher support.     

Prompted Journal Writing Supports Preservice History Teachers in Drawing on Multiple Knowledge Domains for Designing Learning Tasks

Becoming a history teacher requires the integration of pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and content knowledge. Because the integration of knowledge from different disciplines is a complex task, we investigated prompted learning journals as a method to support teacher students’ knowledge integration. Fifty-two preservice history teachers participated in the experimental study. They read a text about a historical event, a text about teaching history, and a text about cognitive learning processes. Then they wrote a learning journal entry about the three texts. To support the journal writing, the participants in the experimental condition received four integration prompts, whereas the participants in the control condition received no prompts. In the prompted condition, the students engaged more often in integration strategies at the cost of rehearsal and organization strategies. Rehearsal and integration strategies predicted students’ recall of knowledge and their ability to evaluate learning tasks. Integration strategies as elicited in the journals predicted preservice teachers’ performance when designing a learning task for history education. In solving this task, the prompted preservice teachers used the information from the three texts in a more balanced way than the unprompted students who strongly focused on content knowledge. The study illustrates the potentials of learning journals as a method to support knowledge integration in history teacher education.     

Training for content teachers of English Language Learners: using experiential learning to improve instruction*

Abstract

Experiential learning theory places experience at the center of learning. Kolb’s four-stage cycle of experiential learning suggests that effective learners must engage fully in each stage of the cycle – feeling, reflection, thinking, and action. This research assesses the alignment of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle with the week-long Summer Institute of Assisting, Collaborating, and Training ESL Secondary Content Teachers (ACT-ESL), the first stage of a professional development model designed to train content teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs). Qualitative and quantitative data analysis from pre- and post-surveys determined positive changes in participants’ understanding of key ELL concepts, knowledge, and understanding of instructional strategies and practices. Analysis indicated that the Summer Institute had a large effect (d > 2.00 for each scale), regardless of previous training in ELL instructional strategies. Findings show that the Summer Institute incorporated the cycle of learning and tenets of Kolb’s experiential learning theory and evidenced teacher learning.     

Integrating cognitive task analysis into instructional systems development

Traditional methods for task analysis and training design, such as those embodied in Instructional Systems Development (ISD), decompose jobs into discrete tasks composed of specific action sequences and identify prerequisite knowledge and skills for each task. Although these methods have been effective for designing training for simple procedural skills, they offer little insight for analysis or training of jobs involving complex cognitive skills, which increasingly require training today. Because of this, cognitive considerations need to be incorporated into ISD, particularly in the task analysis phase. Recently, cognitive methods have begun to be used to conduct task analysis for training program development and human-computer system development. In this article, recent developments in cognitive task analysis are reviewed, and The Integrated Task Analysis Model (ITAM), a framework for integrating cognitive and behavioral task analysis methods within the ISD model, is presented. Discussed in detail are ITAM's three analysis stages—progressive cycles of data collection, analysis, and decision making—in three components of expertise: skills, knowledge, and mental models. This research was supported in part by the U.S. Air Force Armstrong Laboratory, Human Resources Directorate, Operational Training Division. The views contained herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Air Force or the Department of Defense. Both authors contributed equally to this article. Joan M. Ryder is with CHI Systems, Inc. Richard E. Redding is with Human Technology, Inc. Drs. Bernell Edwards and Thomas Killion were the technical monitors and provided valuable guidance. The authors thank John Cannon, Sharon Fisher, Wayne Zachary, and the participants of an AL/HR Workshop on Cognitive Skills Acquisition for helpful comments.     

Assessing task-orientation potential in primary science textbooks: Toward a new approach

Task orientation is currently a prominent concept under discussion in primary school didactics. It focuses on tasks along which pupils acquire competences on distinct levels of competence. The qualitative empirical study TAPSE (Textbook Analysis in Primary Science Education) pursues the question which conception of task orientation is present in current textbooks in primary science education. The study follows two foci: (a) The introduction of a new category system for the analysis of the task-orientation potential of tasks, based on the further development of existing category systems for analyzing tasks; and (b) the analysis of 994 task statements in science textbooks with respect to the didactic quality of their task orientation. The sample included nine primary science textbooks, four from Germany, and five from Luxembourg. Textbooks were selected from the most frequently sold series in the respective country. All tasks of the textbooks were analyzed deductively and inductively by four coders in three steps: (a) Identifying tasks with task-oriented potential; (b) itemizing different types of task-orientation potential; and (c) comparing the textbooks with respect to country- and period-specific manifestations of task orientation. Analysis indicated that (a) there are few tasks which meet the criteria of task orientation; (b) distinct types of task orientation can be generated, among which implicit forms dominate; and (c) differences occur in the characteristics of task orientation between older and newer textbooks as well as between German and Luxembourgish ones. Central points of discussion ensue from this: The need to develop models for social and cognitive activation for tasks, challenges for professional development for teachers, and support for pupils—in particular high achieving heterogenization.     

The experiences of students with learning disabilities in a higher education virtual campus

Institutions of higher education are increasingly asking students to use the online environment, or virtual campus, when carrying out business related to college life. In this paper, we report findings from a study conducted to learn more about the experiences of college students with learning disabilities as they interacted with this virtual campus. Sixteen college students with documented learning disabilities were observed and interviewed while completing eight tasks in a virtual campus environment. Tasks were chosen from those typically performed by college students and included such items as locating the email address of an instructor, locating a journal article in the library’s online database, and identifying the textbook for a course on the bookstore webpage. Findings indicate that these participants were both successful and not successful in task completion within the virtual campus. Factors that impacted performance included features of the virtual campus and participants’ implementation of cognitive and behavioral strategies.     

Training peer-feedback skills on geometric construction tasks: role of domain knowledge and peer-feedback levels

Peer feedback is widely used to train assessment skills and to support collaborative learning of various learning tasks, but research on peer feedback in the domain of mathematics is limited. Although domain knowledge seems to be a prerequisite for peer-feedback provision, it only recently received attention in the peer-feedback literature. In this study, preservice mathematics teachers (N = 43) were involved in a peer-feedback training in which they evaluated geometric construction tasks and were (a) trained to provide peer feedback on different levels (i.e. task, process and self-regulation) and (b) scaffolded with worked examples, feedback provision prompts and evaluation rubrics during the training. A quasi-experimental mixed design was implemented with domain knowledge as the between-subject factor and measurement occasion as the within-subject factor. Students’ peer-feedback provision skills and their beliefs about peer-feedback provision were measured before and after the training. Students with high and medium domain knowledge provided more peer feedback at the self-regulation level, whereas those low in domain knowledge provided more peer feedback at the task-level after the training. Students’ beliefs about peer-feedback provision became less positive after the training, regardless of the level of their domain knowledge.     

Domain expertise and the effectiveness of dynamic simulator interfaces in the acquisition of procedural motor skills

Previous research into the effectiveness of dynamic versus static instructional design paradigms has reported divergent findings. Dynamic instructions have been shown to be more effective in teaching novel procedural skills. In contrast, the apparent benefit of dynamic over static instructions has been attributed in other studies to the cognitive capabilities and previous knowledge of the learner. Can the benefit of dynamic instruction persist in learners with domain expertise on learning novel tasks? In this paper, we report the result of an experiment that shows that irrespective of the learner's previous knowledge, dynamic instructions retain a significant effectiveness over statics for teaching intra‐domain novel task performance. Twenty‐four participants with domain expertise were divided into three independent groups to perform a procedural motor task following treatment with different training interfaces. After controlling for spatial abilities and excluding previous specific‐to‐task knowledge, we observe that participants that trained with interfaces containing dynamic content recorded better task performance measures than others using non‐dynamic interfaces. This suggest that within the context of motor skill acquisition, dynamic instructional interfaces can yield significant increases to post‐learning task performance measures, which is independent of the learner's cognitive capabilities or previous knowledge.     

Too little,too much: A limited range of practice 'doses' is best for retaining grapho-motor skill in children

We tested how practice ‘dosing’ affects learning (within-session) and long-term retention of a grapho-motor skill in 7–8 year old children. In Experiment 1, participants practiced the production of a letter-form by connecting dots (Invented Letter Task, ILT) in a single session of 6-blocks, 12-blocks, or 24-blocks. Training on 24-blocks resulted in the fastest letter production at the end of the training session. By 4–5 weeks post-training, the 12-blocks group attained equally robust speed gains as the 24-blocks group, and was more accurate. No long-term gains were achieved after 6-blocks training. In Experiment 2, children who were afforded 6-blocks ILT practice on four consecutive days outperformed the single-session 24-blocks group by 4–5 weeks post-training. Overall, by 4–5 weeks post-training, the single-session 12-blocks practice group was most fluent and accurate. The results suggest that only a limited range of practice schedules may lead, efficiently to long-term gains in children's grapho-motor skill learning.     

How do illiterate adults react to metalinguistic training?

The present study focuses on the capacity of illiterate adults to master three different metalinguistic tasks: judgment of phonological length of words, initial consonant deletion, and lexical segmentation of sentences. Illiterates’ performance, during a pre-test and after training, was compared with that of literates and partial illiterates (adults at the beginning of the process of acquiring literacy) who received the same training. In the pre-test, illiterates were lower than literates in the three tasks; and partial-illiterates were at an intermediate level in two of the tasks. The three groups profited from the training, especially illiterates and partial-illiterates for whom improvement was dramatic across all three tasks. Finally, the results revealed a hierarchy of difficulty across the tasks. The capacity to focus on the phonological dimension seemed to be a prerequisite for the phoneme deletion ability. The task of lexical segmentation seemed to be more a measure of syntactic awareness than a measure of phonological awareness.     

One Step at a Time: Using Task Analyses to Teach Skills

Task analyses are useful when teaching children how to complete tasks by breaking the tasks into small steps, particularly when children struggle to learn a skill during typical classroom instruction. We describe how to create a task analysis by identifying the steps a child needs to independently perform the task, how to assess what steps a child is able to do without adult support, and then decide how to teach the steps the child still needs to learn. Using task analyses can be the key to helping a young child become more independent.     

Individual differences in late bilinguals' L2 phonological processes: From acoustic-phonetic analysis to lexical access

The extent to which the phonetic system of a second language is mastered varies across individuals. The present study evaluates the pattern of individual differences in late bilinguals across different phonological processes. Fifty-five late Dutch-English bilinguals were tested on their ability to perceive a difficult L2 speech contrast (the English /æ/-/ε/ contrast) in three different tasks: A categorization task, a word identification task and a lexical decision task. As a group, L2 listeners were less accurate than native listeners. However, at the individual level, almost half of the L2 listeners scored within the native range in the categorization task whereas a small percentage scored within the native range in the identification and lexical decision tasks. These results show that L2 listeners' performance crucially depends on the nature of the task, with higher L2 listener accuracy on an acoustic-phonetic analysis task than on tasks involving lexical processes. These findings parallel previous results for early bilinguals, where the pattern of performance was consistent with the processing hierarchy proposed by different models of speech perception. The results indicate that the analysis of patterns of non-native performance can provide important insights concerning the architecture of the speech perception system and the issue of language learnability.     

Staying with the text: the contribution of gender,achievement orientations,and interest to students’ performance on a literacy task

This study addresses concerns about boys’ underperformance on literacy tasks compared to girls, by investigating male and females students’ responses to narrative texts. Participants were 142 Grade 9 and 10 students. Achievement orientations, including goals, self‐efficacy, and self‐handicapping, were measured and approach and avoidance factors identified. Boys scored higher than girls on the avoidance factor. The task presented to participants involved reading sections from two narrative texts representing typically male or typically female reading interests. Interest ratings for the narrative text topics and interest levels while reading the texts were monitored, and students’ answers to multiple‐choice questions on text content recorded. Regression analyses confirmed that the influence of gender, achievement orientation, and on‐task text interest on reading performance varied with different patterns of task interest. The findings suggest that students’ achievement orientations and task interests are both important for understanding gender differences in students’ response to narrative texts.     

Effects of variations in task design on mathematics teachers’ learning experiences: a case of a sorting task

The goal of the study presented in this article was to examine how variations in task design may affect mathematics teachers’ learning experiences. The study focuses on sorting tasks, i.e., learning tasks that require grouping a given set of mathematical items, in as many ways as possible, according to different criteria suggested by the learners. We present an example of a sorting task for which the items to be grouped are related to basic concepts of analytical geometry that are connected to the notion of loci of points. Based on a design experiment of three iterations with practicing secondary school mathematics teachers, we report on intended and enacted objects of learning inherent in three versions of the task. Empirically based suggestions are drawn about design of sorting tasks that potentially evoke desirable learning experiences.     

浅谈交际课堂的任务设计

英语课堂中任务的引入是实现语言交际的重要途径。为交际课堂设计任务是进行任务型教学的第一环节，设计任务时应遵循3个原则和考虑4方面内容，同时任务设计要求相对个性化。