Safety in unpredictable complex systems – a framework for the analysis of safety derived from the nuclear power industry

The increasing complexity and power of our technologies compels us to find new ways in which to conceptualise, understand and maintain their safety in the long term. Some complex technological industries have performed better than others in terms of applying sustained and systematic approaches to the maintenance of safety. The United States nuclear power industry can be seen as an ideal test-bed for the development of safety initiatives, being responsible for the control of potentially unpredictable technology that involves extraordinary forces and costs. This paper describes and formalises a framework for better understanding the safety of complex socio-technological systems, based on key events in the development of safety in the United States nuclear power industry. The framework comprises two components: (1) a state-space approach for better conceptualising system failures, the benefits of incident reporting and remedial safety initiatives; and (2) a set of milestones that can be used to assess the development of safety in socio-technological industries. Healthcare and the United States nuclear power industry both represent complex socio-technological systems with similar technical characteristics. However, safety strategies in healthcare have not kept pace with the increasing complexity of clinical practice, and there have been international calls for improvements in patient safety. The framework is applied to the analysis of safety in healthcare, demonstrating its utility as an alternative safety analogy in healthcare. Use of the framework indicates substantial scope for improvements in healthcare safety through major evidence-based system redesign. By lowering the threshold for the reporting of incident data to include accident precursors, it is possible to identify problem areas before patient harm occurs.     

New methods for an old debate: Utilizing reader response to investigate the relationship between collaboration and quality in academic journal articles

There has been a longstanding debate about the merits of collaborative research, with most studies focusing on the citation advantage of such research. However, citation studies provide only one lens on the issues. New methods of inquiry are necessary to incorporate other audiences of scholarly literature. Reader response surveys were used to evaluate the quality of collaborative versus single-authored research. Graduate students in three sections of the same library and information science course during the 2010 academic year used surveys to rate each week's assigned readings according to overall quality, usefulness for class discussion, and enjoyability. Students voted whether to keep each article in the reading list for the following semester. Data were analyzed to compare results for single-author versus multi-author works. Multi-author works were favored over single-author. These findings provide another layer of empirical support for the benefits of collaborative research and inform both scientometricians and educators.     

The concurrent validity of the peabody individual achievement test and woodcock reading mastery tests among students with mild learning problems

Previous research has revealed moderate to high validity coefficients between the Peabody Individual Achievement Test and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests. However, the same research has indicated rather consistently that the latter instrument provides significantly lower means than do several screening tests currently being used in the field. This investigation replicated and extended previous research by comparing the two instruments across three grade clusters in order to determine whether the lower Woodcock scores are equally robust for each level. As in prior research, validity coefficients were moderate to high in magnitude. However, the differences between the means of two instruments were found to decrease in size from earlier to later grades. That is, seven of the eight significantly different means were found to occur in grades 1 through 4. Only one significant difference was found for grades 5 through 8. Discussion sought to explain the results in terms of the representativeness of the Woodcock norms and the novel method that Woodcock used to estimate sample means and standard deviations.     

Information Retrieval Systems and Learning

In the past, systems of instruction and retrieval have delivered different information, have served different functions, and have varied in content coverage, control, interaction, and amount of monitoring and guidance provided. However, technological trends that increase the amount and kind of information available on-line and that increase the speed and ease with which it can be searched are eroding these differences. It is now possible to put more primary information online in more varied forms and to make it more easily accessible to those who lack knowledge of computers or retrieval systems. Consequently, retrieval systems are becoming an alternative to instruction as a way to learn. In certain circumstances, letting people learn from information retrieval systems might be preferable to more formal approaches to instruction. Cognitive psychology provides clues about when to use retrieval systems to teach and train. Using retrieval systems or instructional systems is not an all-or-nothing decision. New instructional designs like hypermedia and “parallel systems” are appearing that integrate formal instruction and information retrieval.     

Development of expertise in elite and sub-elite British rugby league players: A comparison of practice experiences

Previous studies have investigated how individuals reach an expert level by counting the number of hours engaged in specific practice types. Here we sought to understand and compare the microstructure (e.g. practice tasks undertaken) of these practice hours experienced by elite and sub-elite British rugby league players. Semi-structured interviews explored the practice experiences of eight international and eight domestic level players. A two-staged thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. The analysis revealed that both player groups experienced a rich and narrow landscape of affordances and were exposed to early diversification of sports experiences during childhood. Differences were identified in domestic level players’ experiences of amateur and professional sports, where episodes of negative developmental environments were reported. International players’ practice experiences revealed differences in their professional careers, where exposure to scenario-based practice and dynamic learning environments were reported. The findings suggest that insights from ecological dynamics provide a suitable theoretical framework to guide coaches in the design of practice environments that should consider the physical, psychological, emotional and social dimensions of expertise acquisition.     

A Step Beyond Univision Evaluations Using a Systems Model of Performance Improvement

The article examines three views of performance improvement-scientific management, instructional design, and systems thinking, Each provides a unique view of performance improvement and specific roles for evaluation. Envisioning performance improvement from a single view may be insufficient for evaluating the performance improvement situations found in today's dynamic organisations. The articie provides an integrated definition of performance and a synthesis, model, the Systems Model of Performance.     

The cognitive levels test: Its relationship with reading and mathematics achievement

Any instrument designed to measure broad cognitive ability is expected to correlate substantially with valid measures of academic achievement. This report describes an investigation designed to evaluate the relationship between the Cognitive Levels Test, a newly available instrument, and two tests of academic achievement that have been widely used for nearly two decades: the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests and the KeyMath Diagnostic Arithmetic Test. The study included children in grades K-2 who were enrolled in a remedial summer school program. The results showed the Cognitive Levels Test (Cognitive Index) to be rather highly correlated with the KeyMath Diagnostic Arithmetic Test Total score (r=.72) and moderately correlated with the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests Total Reading score (r=.55). A repeated measures analysis of variance comparing standard scores for the Cognitive Levels Test with those of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests indicated few mean differences between the two sets of scores. Implications concerning the validity of the Cognitive Levels Test were discussed.