The relationships of communication with supervisor and decision‐participation to employee job satisfaction

This study examined the relationship of communication‐related variables to employee job satisfaction. Specifically, employee communication satisfaction with supervisor, perceived supervisor receptivity to information and ideas, employee participation in decision‐making, participation versus desired participation level, and job satisfaction with supervisor, co‐workers, promotions, pay, and work were studied. The subjects for the study were classified employees (secretaries, clerks, lowest level supervisors, etc) in three administrative units (Controller, Personnel, and Admissions & Records) of a comprehensive Eastern university. The communication‐related variables accounted collectively for a substantial amount of variance (76%) in employees job satisfaction. Moreover, communication satisfaction with supervisor and supervisor receptivity in information were found to be more powerful “predictors”; of job satisfaction than the decision participation variables. The study cast some doubt upon the comparative value of participation as a communication strategy with low‐level employees. Specific guidelines for direct application of results and implications for future research were derived from the study.     

Syntactic manipulations and semantic interpretations in algebra: The effect of graphic representation

This study examined the effect of graphic representation of algebraic functions on performance of tasks involving expressions' transformations. Twenty eight teachers, who received instruction and practice using multiple representation software, were tested on their ability to debug faulty transformed expressions, either with or without graphic feedback. Two main strategies were used while debugging — Syntactic Manipulation (SYM) and Semantic Interpretation (SEI). It was found that subjects who used the SEI strategy, improved their performance while using graphs, as compared to no use of graphs. Some positive effect of the graphic feedback was also manifested for those using the SYM strategy, who were assisted by the graphs but continued to syntactically manipulate the expressions. All subjects improved their performance after the treatment, as measured by paper-and-pencil traditional tasks.     

The Impact of Performance Feedback on Counseling Self‐Efficacy and Counselor Anxiety

Based on the Social Cognitive Model of Counselor Training (L. M. Larson, 1998), this study explored the effects of bogus performance feedback on counseling self‐efficacy and counselor anxiety. After a 10‐minute mock counseling session, 45 master's‐level trainees received either positive or negative bogus feedback regarding their performance. Results showed that (a) participants altered their counseling self‐efficacy depending on the performance feedback they received, and (b) participants reported changes in anxiety following performance feedback.     

A Self‐Management Strategy for Increasing Implementation of Behavioural Procedures by Residential Staff

Two preliminary studies explored the use of a self‐management strategy as a component of a training program for residential Child and Family Workers. The self‐management strategy comprised the Correspondence Training procedures of Risley (1977) and the formulation of specific implementation plans (Sanders & Glynn, 1981). Experiment 1 found that prompting staff to formulate plans of how they would implement target behaviour management skills and providing individual feedback on their performance in accordance with their plans resulted in gains in implementation of target skills; no gains in implementation resulted from Instruction and Group Feedback conditions alone. This experiment examined pooled data from 18 staff collected by regular time sampled observations. Experiment 2 introduced similar procedures in a multiple baseline design to four volunteer staff, each of whom selected two target behavioural skills from the training manual. The self‐management strategy resulted in clear gains in implementation of these self‐selected target skills by all four staff. Results are discussed in terms of the potential of the correspondence training paradigm and the formulation of specific implementation plans as an approach to on‐the‐job training of residential staff.     

Cognitive Behavior Modification and Informed Teacher Treatments for Shy Children

Three levels of feed forward information and five levels of feedback information were administered during a 200 two-cue trial experiment to 150 subjects. The feed forward information consisted of instructions on correlative relationships and cue validities. The feedback information consisted of outcome feedback presented at different rates. Results indicated that: subjects provided with a psychologically relevant MCPL setting with labeled cues can perform at a very high level of proficiency without feed forward or feed-back information; statistically naive subjects are unable to use feed forward information to improve their performance; whether subject performance increases or decreases when provided with feedback information depends upon the performance index used; and withdrawal of feedback generally has little effect upon subject performance.     

Towards state‐mandated testing in Germany: how do teachers assess the pedagogical relevance of performance feedback information?

The paper analyses how teachers view state‐mandated tests in Baden‐Württemberg, a large state in the south‐west of Germany. For the first time in 2006, public secondary schools were bound by law to administer Vergleichsarbeiten [state‐wide tests] in up to three relevant subjects after Grade 6. Scholars in the field of school improvement emphasise that there is a gap between performance feedback provided by external tests and how this information is internally processed. To bridge this gap, a crucial precondition is that teachers must accept state‐wide testing as a useful instrument for improving the performance of schools. To examine how teachers view the pedagogical relevance of performance feedback information, 256 secondary schools were approached, and an anonymous questionnaire was completed by a representative sample of 307 teachers with Grade 6 classes. Analysis of the quantitative data reveals that teachers in general secondary schools (the lower level of the academically streamed secondary system) are more open‐minded towards the tests than their colleagues in intermediate schools or in grammar schools (the highest level). Even so, only a small percentage of teachers in general secondary schools acknowledge the pedagogical relevance of performance feedback information for improving teaching strategies. This result suggests that state‐mandated testing in Baden‐Württemberg is highly unlikely to initiate or support school improvement activities for the time being.     

Comparison of student performance using web and paper‐based homework in college‐level physics

Homework gives students an opportunity to practice important college‐level physics skills. A switch to Web‐based homework alters the nature of feedback received, potentially changing the pedagogical benefit. Calculus‐ and algebra‐based introductory physics students enrolled in large paired lecture sections at a public university completed homework of standard end‐of‐the‐chapter exercises using either the Web or paper. Comparison of their performances on regular exams, conceptual exams, quizzes, laboratory, and homework showed no significant differences between groups; other measures were found to be strong predictors of performance. This indicates that the change in medium itself has limited effect on student learning. Ways in which Web‐based homework could enable exercises with greater pedagogical value are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 1050–1071, 2003     

The Development of Fluency,Stimulus Generalisation and Response Maintenance of Student Academic Engaged Time with Children in a Special School: an educational mainstream preparation procedure validated against normative peer data

This paper argues that direct programming for generalised outcomes, in conjunction with attention to the acquisition of fluency, of socially valued classroom responses is essential when preparing children in a separate special education facility for the regular school classroom. The present within‐subject analysis examined whether: (a) strengthening the specific components of student academic engaged time using a token economy; then (b) fading continuous social reinforcement plus feedback to intermittent schedules once criterion had been reached; and finally, (c) shifting the locus of control of consequences of classroom performance, including regular school placement, from external sources to the child himself, would result in subjects generalising gains made over time and settings. Four of the six subjects successfully demonstrated generalisation of performance levels across time. Two of these four further generalised their performance across classrooms. A comparison of their data with normative peer data indicated that a socially valid behavioural change had occurred.     

Control of feedback in computer-assisted instruction

Although considerable research has been conducted on both learner control and feedback, very little research has addressed the effect of giving learners control over the feedback that they receive. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of learner control over feedback in a CAI lesson. Subjects used one of four CAI programs which provided either program control or learner control over verification or elaboration feedback. Results indicated that subjects who received elaboration feedback during instruction performed better than students who received verification feedback. Type of control did not have a significant influence on performance. However, when subjects selected feedback for items answered incorrectly during instruction, subjects under learner control/elaboration performed better on the posttest than subjects under learner control/verification. Implications for the design of CAI are discussed.     

Exploring the Impact of Receiving Sender‐Based Negative and Positive Feedback on Team‐Level Process Outcomes Using a Mobile Application

Team‐based projects continue to be important for structuring work in many organizations, and employees are increasingly using mobile applications (apps) for peer evaluations as part of a performance appraisals process. Since a graduating student can expect to work in a team at some point in their career, exposure to class‐related group projects is important. This study explored using a mobile application (app) called DevelapMe (DMe), which allowed for 273 business undergraduates in 54 teams to give and receive real‐time peer‐based feedback during a 5‐week group project. Prior empirical research has shown that technology can improve the group development process, but such research has not used a mobile app. The general goal of this study was to investigate how receiving real‐time feedback through a mobile app (DMe) can affect the team development process over time. Two online surveys, Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2), were administered over a 5‐week period. Results showed that two of the three team‐level process outcomes, team trust and team commitment (but not team value‐goal fit), significantly increased from T1 to T2. Results also showed that receiving T1 sender‐based positive, but not negative, feedback scales had a significant impact on all three team‐level process outcomes.     

Pigeons’ use of cues in a repeated five-trial-sequence, single-reversal task

We studied behavioral flexibility, or the ability to modify one’s behavior in accordance with the changing environment, in pigeons using a reversal-learning paradigm. In two experiments, each session consisted of a series of five-trial sequences involving a simple simultaneous color discrimination in which a reversal could occur during each sequence. The ideal strategy would be to start each sequence with a choice of S1 (the first correct stimulus) until it was no longer correct, and then to switch to S2 (the second correct stimulus), thus utilizing cues provided by local reinforcement (feedback from the preceding trial). In both experiments, subjects showed little evidence of using local reinforcement cues, but instead used the mean probabilities of reinforcement for S1 and S2 on each trial within each sequence. That is, subjects showed remarkably similar behavior, regardless of where (or, in Exp. 2, whether) a reversal occurred during a given sequence. Therefore, subjects appeared to be relatively insensitive to the consequences of responses (local feedback) and were not able to maximize reinforcement. The fact that pigeons did not use the more optimal feedback afforded by recent reinforcement contingencies to maximize their reinforcement has implications for their use of flexible response strategies under reversal-learning conditions.     

Number sense strategies used by 6th‐grade students in Taiwan

In an interview setting, 21 6th‐graders from four public schools in south Taiwan were asked a series of questions, related to whole and decimal numbers, designed to assess their number sense. Eight students were randomly selected from both low and middle performance levels, and five were selected from a high‐performance level, according to their mathematical capabilities. Results indicated that, regardless of performance level, very few number sense strategies (e.g. using benchmarks, estimation or numbers of magnitude) were used. The evidence also revealed that Taiwanese students tended to apply rule‐based methods and standard written algorithms to explain their reasoning. Their inclination to use paper‐and‐pencil procedures narrowed their thinking and reasoning powers: this heavy reliance on written algorithms seemed to be a major impediment to the development of number sense.     

Implementing concept-based learning in a large undergraduate classroom

An experiment explicitly introducing learning strategies to a large, first-year undergraduate cell biology course was undertaken to see whether awareness and use of strategies had a measurable impact on student performance. The construction of concept maps was selected as the strategy to be introduced because of an inherent coherence with a course structured by concepts. Data were collected over three different semesters of an introductory cell biology course, all teaching similar course material with the same professor and all evaluated using similar examinations. The first group, used as a control, did not construct concept maps, the second group constructed individual concept maps, and the third group first constructed individual maps then validated their maps in small teams to provide peer feedback about the individual maps. Assessment of the experiment involved student performance on the final exam, anonymous polls of student perceptions, failure rate, and retention of information at the start of the following year. The main conclusion drawn is that concept maps without feedback have no significant effect on student performance, whereas concept maps with feedback produced a measurable increase in student problem-solving performance and a decrease in failure rates.     

The Additional Effects of Process and Outcome Feedback Following Brief In‐service Teacher Training

Three primary school teachers attended a half‐day, in‐service training workshop which targeted instructional and managerial behaviours identified as being functionally related to students’ academic engaged behaviours in class. Following the workshop, daily observations showed only temporary changes in the teachers’ and their students’ behaviours with trends back towards baseline measures. After this period of ‘no feedback’, three conditions of in‐class performance feedback were introduced in different sequences to each teacher: outcome feedback (based on measures of a sample of their students’ academic engaged behaviour during lessons), process feedback (based on measures of the teachers’ own instructional behaviours), and a combination of both outcome and process feedback.

A time‐series, multiple baseline across subjects design was employed which allowed comparison of measures of teachers’ and students’ behaviours during the immediate post‐workshop period and during periods of the three types of feedback. The results showed that the introduction of performance feedback had the immediate (and cumulative) effect of increasing the behaviours targeted in the workshop to high rates that were maintained even when feedback was withdrawn. There were, however, no differences in the comparative efficacy of outcome, process or outcome/process combination effects.

The study builds upon existing research which has shown performance feedback to be an essential component of effective professional development and staff training packages that target workplace behaviour change. It also adds to the limited research that has examined the efficacy of different types of performance feedback and suggests other variables, such as who presents the feedback, may be important.     

A Discourse Analysis of School Counseling Supervisory E‐Mail

This article is a discourse analysis of weekly computer‐mediated communications between 8 school counseling interns and their e‐mail supervisor over a 16‐week semester. Course‐required e‐mail supervision was provided as an adjunct to traditional face‐to‐face individual and group supervision. School counselor supervisees and supervisor enacted 3 discursive strategies (repetition, labeling, and plural pronoun usage), which were observed to contribute to supervisee professional identity development. Findings are discussed in light of both the counselor education and discourse analysis literatures. Implications for practice and future research are provided.     

‘The boys’ present… Hegemonic masculinity: a performance of multiple acts

This article explores the performance of masculinity(ies) within the classroom site. Drawing upon research conducted in two co‐educational secondary classrooms, it examines the ways in which two groups of boys took up positions of dominance within their respective classrooms and, more specifically, focuses upon the ways in which they came to construct themselves, and perform, as embodied masculine subjects. In doing so, it examines the gendered and sexualized discursive knowledges and practices mobilized by these boys. Furthermore, it illustrates the ways in which these performances are constituted by, and constitutive of, versions of hegemonic masculinity while demonstrating the range of ways of ‘doing’ hegemonic masculinity—the various performance techniques available to do this ‘work’. The article also examines how these boys' performances served to position their peers within the classroom and, furthermore, explores their intra‐group interactions and the ways in which they came to position each other.     

Modified use of team‐based learning for effective delivery of medical gross anatomy and embryology

Team‐based learning (TBL) is an instructional strategy that combines independent out‐of‐class preparation for in‐class discussion in small groups. This approach has been successfully adopted by a number of medical educators. This strategy allowed us to eliminate anatomy lectures and incorporate small‐group active learning. Although our strategy is a modified use of classical TBL, in the text, we use the standard terminology of TBL for simplicity. We have modified classical TBL to fit our curricular needs and approach. Anatomy lectures were replaced with TBL activities that required pre‐class reading of assigned materials, an individual self‐assessment quiz, discussion of learning issues derived from the reading assignments, and then the group retaking the same quiz for discussion and deeper learning. Students' performances and their educational experiences in the TBL format were compared with the traditional lecture approach. We offer several in‐house unit exams and a final comprehensive subject exam provided by the National Board of Medical Examiners. The students performed better in all exams following the TBL approach compared to traditional lecture‐based teaching. Students acknowledged that TBL encouraged them to study regularly, allowed them to actively teach and learn from peers, and this served to improve their own exam performances. We found that a TBL approach in teaching anatomy allowed us to create an active learning environment that helped to improve students' performances. Based on our experience, other preclinical courses are now piloting TBL. Anat Sci Ed 1:3–9, 2008. © 2007 American Association of Anatomists.     

The Effect of a Mastery Learning Technique on the Performance of a Transfer of Training Task

This study evaluated the effect of using the mastery learning technique of self‐directed feedback, reinforcement, and remediation of knowledge on the performance of a work‐related task. The mastery learning intervention was conducted via a workbook which provided feedback to participants on their knowledge attainment after instruction, yet before the evaluation of the transfer task. The study utilized a randomized subjects, post‐test‐only control group design with 130 participants. The hypothesis that mastery learning would have a positive effect on transfer of knowledge from the classroom to a work‐related task was supported. Implications for instructional design and suggestions for future research are discussed.