Expertise Research Methodology: Identifying Differences and Factors Influencing High and Low Performance

Expertise research methodologies have focused upon the identification of differences and factors influencing high and low performance at the individual, process, and organizational level. The goal of this review is to use the results to facilitate performance improvement through the investigation of high and low performing entities. Various approaches are reported in the literature to investigate expertise and quantify factors relating to development of this expertise at the individual, group, and organizational level. This review of research literature focuses upon studies utilizing expertise methodologies outside of the laboratory for identification of differences and factors influencing high and low performance. Studies cited emphasize performance at the individual, process, or organizational level. Statistical methods and techniques for identifying high and low performance are identified. Results have implications for use in performance improvement initiatives in assessing differences or factors influencing performance as well as identification of interventions and outcome measures.     

Indikatoren kultureller Bildung

The arts form an integral part of human education. Arts education contributes to the development of the individual’s expressive needs and interests. It serves to pass on cultural and aesthetic practices and enables active participation in the cultural life of society. Over the last years, the demand for data has been growing, and in 2012, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), together with the Standing Conference of the Länder Ministers of Education (KMK), commissioned the German national report on education with a specific focus on “cultural and aesthetic education over the life-span”. The present contribution defines the scope of this thematic focus and presents an overview of available data sources for its operationalization. It describes the process of structuring the domain, the construction of statistics and indicators, and outlines ways for further improving the monitoring of arts education in Germany.     

The Economical Collection of Data for Test Validation

Several researchers have concluded that changing answers to multiple-choice questions is typically beneficial for students. This research attempts to validate these earlier results and to determine if students accurately perceive the outcome of their own answer-changing behavior. The results support the conclusions of the earlier studies that when students change answers on multiple-choice questions they tend to gain roughly 3 points for every point lost. This study also found that students predominantly underestimate the benefit of their own answer-changing behavior.