Communication and Environmental Designs Analyzing Organizational Culture to Improve Human Performance

The relationship between environmental design, communication, and organizational culture is examined to provide performance improvement practitioners with an analytical tool that helps determine appropriate interventions. Organizations are comprised of people who communicate and socially construct artifacts, norms, values, and assumptions that guide how they conduct business. That is, employees interact to create, maintain, and reify their organizational culture. One artifact of organisational culture that should be apparent to human performance technologists is the environmental design of the office in which the organization operates. While some performance improvement interventions focus on the orientation of humans to their physical surroundings (ie., ergonomics), our analysis focuses on the communication patterns and organizational culture imbedded in the physical environment. We posit that performance technologists should look beyond the explicit environment and analyze organizational culture to begin understanding the implicit nature of how employees perform. A case study is provided to illustrate how three levels of organizational culture can be used to analyze an environment in which employees work to determine appropriate performance improvement solutions.     

Common student misconceptions in electrochemistry: Galvanic,electrolytic, and concentration cells

This study replicates, with additions, research done by Garnett and Treagust. Garnett and Treagust's interview questions for galvanic and electrolytic cells were used with modifications; concentration cell questions were asked in a similar manner. These questions were administered to 16 introductory college chemistry students after electrochemistry instruction. Student misconceptions most commonly encountered included notions that electrons flow through the salt bridge and electrolyte solutions to complete the circuit, plus and minus signs assigned to the electrodes represent net electronic charges, and water is unreactive in the electrolysis of aqueous solutions. New misconceptions identified included notions that half-cell potentials are absolute and can be used to predict the spontaneity of individual half-cells, and electrochemical cell potentials are independent of ion concentrations. Most students demonstrating misconceptions were still able to calculate cell potentials correctly, which is consistent with research suggesting that students capable of solving quantitative examination problems often lack an understanding of the underlying concepts. Probable origins of these student misconceptions were attributed to students being unaware of the relative nature of electrochemical potentials and chemistry textbooks making misleading and incorrect statements. A minor technical flaw in the Garnett and Treagust study is also addressed. J Res Sci Teach 34: 377–398, 1997.     

Enhancing Socio-technical Governance: Targeting Inequality in Innovation Through Inclusivity Mainstreaming

Socio-technical governance has been of long-standing interest to science and technology studies and science policy studies. Recent calls for midstream modulation direct attention to a more complicated model of innovation, and a new place for social scientists to intervene in research, design and development. This paper develops and expands this earlier work to demonstrate how a suite of concepts from science and technology studies and innovation studies can be used as a heuristic tool to conduct real-time evaluation and reflection during the process of innovation – upstream, midstream, and downstream. The result of this new protocol is inclusivity mainstreaming: determining if and how marginalized peoples and perspectives are being maximally incorporated into the model of innovation, while highlighting common problems of inequality that need to be addressed.

     

Schooling for self-employment in Kenya: The acquisition of craft skills in and outside schools

Primary schooling will continue to be the terminal stage of education for most Kenyan children, and it will have to prepare them for employment that they will create for themselves. What this might imply for the teaching of craft skills is examined. Soapstone carving was selected as the subject of study because it is an important form of self-employment in western Kenya. The acquisition of craft skills in and outside schools was compared using observational and experimental methods. It is argued that school instruction provides little opportunity to develop competence in carrying out cognitive and psychomotor tasks important to expert performance in this and perhaps many other craft occupations.     

Effects of strength and endurance exercise order on endocrine responses to concurrent training

The present study examined the effect of strength and endurance training order on the endocrine milieu associated with strength development and performance during concurrent training. A randomised, between-groups design was employed with 30 recreationally resistance-trained males completing one of four acute experimental training protocols; strength training (ST), strength followed by endurance training (ST-END), endurance followed by strength training (END-ST) or no training (CON). Blood samples were taken before each respective exercise protocol, immediately upon cessation of exercise, and 1?h post cessation of exercise. Blood samples were subsequently analysed for total testosterone, cortisol and lactate concentrations. Ability to maintain 80% 1RM during strength training was better in ST and ST-END than END-ST (both p?<?.05). Immediately following the respective exercise protocols all training interventions elicited significant increases in testosterone (p?<?.05). ST and END-ST resulted in greater increases in cortisol than ST-END (both p?<?.05). The testosterone:cortisol ratio was similar following the respective exercise protocols. Blood lactate concentrations post-training were greater following END-ST and ST than ST-END (both p?<?.05). Conducting endurance exercise prior to strength training resulted in impaired strength training performance. Blood cortisol and lactate concentrations were greater when endurance training was conducted prior to strength training than vice versa. As such, it may be suggested that conducting endurance prior to strength training may result in acute unfavourable responses to strength training when strength training is conducted with high loads.