The Relationship of Learning and Performance Improvement at Different System Levels

The importance of learning for organizational effectiveness is no longer questioned. Research in the last decade has identified the central role of learning for enhancing individual development. team effectiveness, leadership. innovation, and competitive advantage. However, this acknowledgement of learning's importance has been accompanied by the lack of conceptual clarity when learning, change, innovation, and performance‐all desirable states and co‐variants of each other‐are necessarily studied together. Because learning and performance strongly influence each other, we are often left confused by which is the phenomenon of interest. This confusion is compounded when levels of analysis are considered. This paper examines learning and performance improvement first as separate constructs, then as complimentary elements in organization systems. Using a four‐level systems model, changes in the relationship between learning and performance improvement are examined at different levels of the model.     

Case Study Research: A Valuable Learning Tool for Performance Improvement Professionals

Although it is sometimes recommended that performance improvement (PI) professionals include experimental research designs in their repertoire of PI tools and methods, it has been long understood that experimental designs can be difficult to implement due to impediments resulting from the complex nature of the organizational settings. However, the utilization of case study research has proven to be an effective alternative to aid in the identification of strengths and opportunities for the improvement of organizational procedures, policies, processes, or programs. Case study research helps managers and practitioners make sense of real world problems. This article presents a summary of steps in the design of case study research and provides examples of how these methods have been used within organizational settings. Implications for PI practitioners are provided.     

Performance Improvement

The Board of Directors of the International Society for Performance Improvement has identified top managers and executives as one of the population groups that are or should be represented in ISPI membership. In an effort to research these professionals, Performance Improvement is introducing a new feature — Executive Summaries. These are synopses of the feature articles in each issue. They will appear together on pages that can be copied and distributed to members of your organization who might not have time to read PI, but may benefit from the content of its articles. We encourage you to share summaries with managers and executives, as well as clients, team members, students, and other performance improvement professionals. Also — look for the summaries to appear on ISPI's Web Site soon.     

综合英语中的学习趣味性与学习动机的提高

动机是指学习某种语言的愿望及为此付出的努力和对学习某种语言所持的综合态度。当前,综合英语授课仍以教师讲授为主,教师花大量时间通过例句来讲解语言点、句法和课文内容,所以课堂气氛沉闷,往往是老师在唱"独角戏"。教师若能在教学过程中穿插一些趣味教学法,将能起到调动学生学习动机的作用,帮助老师提高课堂学习效率。     

Understanding Performance Improvement

I argue in this article that the foundation of performance improvement consists of a number of principles of reasoning as opposed to a number of models. I show, along with some prominent models, what these principles are and that none of the models incorporates them completely. Finally, I consolidate these principles into one list and show how they lead to a simple performance improvement process that includes the development of new models and the adaptation of existing models.     

Innovation and Performance Improvement Integration

G2000's HR Execution Excellence—Retail Attendance System was one of the innovative projects to receive the ISPI Award of Excellence in 2016. It is a continuous improvement project that applies the concept of holistic human performance improvement using an ISPI human performance technology (HPT) model (ISPI, 2012) to streamline the front‐end and back‐end processes of our Retail Attendance System. As a result, it leads us to achieve one of our business goals: employment regulatory compliance. In our case, the project team was tasked with seeking solutions to ensure that the payroll process for retail staff could be performed accurately and in a timely manner. After applying the HPT model to conduct the gap analysis and identify the causes or factors that were limiting our performance, we integrated the concept of human‐centered design approach at the solution‐design phase of the project, to lead us to innovative solutions.     

Metacognition and Human Performance Improvement

An understanding of the uses of meta-cognition provides a powerful tool toward developing quality and efficiency in task learning and performance. Metacognition is the executive controller of cognitive processes responsible both for self regulated learning and work performance outcomes. Comprehension monitoring and motivation are two prime components of metacognition which are responsible for commitment to, and definition of, goals, monitoring progress toward goals, and activating the appropriate thinking skills to achieve goals. Specific thinking skill categories of attention, organization, and elaboration are described with examples of how specific techniques in each category can optimize learning and job performance. Research on training of metacognitive skills through both detached and embedded skill-development programs is reviewed. In addition, ways to compensate for metacognitive skills when training is not cost-effective are described. The relationship between metacognitive skills and effective management of work performance is stressed.     

Enhancing Self-Efficacy and Learning Performance

The effect of a communication designed to enhance the self-efficacy beliefs of introductory psychology students was examined. The author assigned students (N = 123) into above average, average, and below average performance categories. All students were invited to send the author an e-mail to receive a bonus point. Of the students who responded (n = 76), half were sent an e-mail message designed to enhance their efficacy beliefs, while the other half received a neutral note. As predicted, self-efficacy beliefs were significantly related to exam scores and significantly affected by the efficacy-enhancing communication.     

浅析英语自主学习及其能力的培养

本文探讨了自主学习定义、制约自主学习能力发展的因素,并重点介绍了提升自主学习能力的有效措施以及自主学习培养学习者的创新思维能力。     

元认知与自主学习能力提高

自主学习能力体现在学习者有能力掌控学习,元认知能力发展是自主学习能力提高的关键环节.我国大学生已具备一定的自主学习意识,但缺乏必要的自主学习行动和娴熟的元认知技能.元认知策略训练对于提高自主学习能力具有重要作用.     

从学习动机谈提高成人学习能力的策略

学习动机作为成人非智力因素中的核心成分,直接影响和牵制其他非智力因素作用的发挥,因此从成人学习动机出发,讨论如何提高其学习能力是当前成人教学的关键问题。     

World Class Quality and Performance Improvement

The shortage of resources during this difficult economic period has led to extensive discussions about reprioritizing our resources and learning to manage them better. At the same time, there has been an increased desire by people in organizations to be involved in the decisions that affect their work. As people in organizations carried out their penetrating searches for ways to create more responsive and healthy organizations, new ideas were studied, adapted to local needs, and eventually adopted. The next step was one of becoming more adept than those from whom we got the ideas initially. Many of the ideas that have been implemented in the name of Total Quality Management (TQM) have come about in just this way. The whole area of “quality sciences” is coming to be recognized as a separate field of study and application. This article discusses world-class quality and performance improvement and provides examples from industry and education.     

学习支持系统(LPSS)

人们在实际工作中往往会遇到一些难题或问题,这时也就非常期望得到他人的指点或帮助。通过指点或帮助解决了难题的过程也可称作为一种“学习过程”,这一过程用更简单的说法是“边干边学”或“干中学”。本文基于PSS思想讨论了如何实现人们“干中学”的基本思路,并就学习支持系统(LPSS)的基本概念、系统结构设计的考虑、以及系统实施的技术难点给予了描述。     

Teacher Performance Ratings and Professional Improvement

Like other public workers, teachers typically receive high and compressed ratings that do little to differentiate them based on performance. Motivated by empirical evidence of substantial variation in effectiveness among teachers, there has been a recent push to develop more informative evaluation systems with greater ratings dispersion. We study one of the first of these new systems, implemented in Tennessee, in order to understand how teachers respond to the provision of new, more differentiated performance ratings. We focus on whether summative ratings influence teachers’ self-reported, self-directed professional improvement activities as measured by four items on a statewide teacher survey. Using a regression discontinuity design we find no evidence that teachers alter their time investments in professional improvement, or adjust their professional improvement activities based on evaluation feedback, in response to their ratings.     

Assisting Performance in Teaching and Learning

Although Vygotskian principles involving the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) are hailed as tenets undergirding teaching and learning within a constructivist setting, these principals have not been implemented widely within school classrooms. Tharp and Gallimore, building on the notion that learning can be maximized when a teacher has a heightened awareness of a student's ZPD and stimulates new learning based upon this understanding, argue that true teaching is a matter of “assisting performance”. This study examines the efforts of one university instructor to assist the performance of her graduate students as they learned to teach, scaffold and support struggling readers. The findings suggest that the university instructor successfully assisted her students by providing supportive feedback, extending their learning and providing appropriate resources through ongoing Email correspondence and face‐to‐face meetings and tutoring sessions. Success was attributed to the instructor's extensive knowledge of supporting struggling readers, awareness of her students' ZPD's in relation to the context of their learning and her efforts to consistently provide appropriate and specific feedback through iterative dialogue.     

英语学习动机与成绩、策略的相关研究

文章根据学习动机的分类,以河南农业大学两个班57名学生为对象,通过问卷调查和四级考试成绩两种手段对学生的学习动机进行了分析,并进一步探讨了学习动机和成绩、策略的相互关系.