Design Your Career - Design Your Life

This research investigates the current plague of unemployment and underemployment that nearly half of qualified individuals in the field of Visual Communications are met with after graduation. Students who major in this field dedicate a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy toward developing a broad skillset that resolves critical matters of communication through visual solutions. Research has demonstrated that despite conditions that are subject to ongoing change of economy, industry, and marketplace there are contributing factors that must be addressed to overcome un/underemployment regardless of circumstances. These include an underdeveloped network of professional contacts, deficiency in recognizing or responding to changing conditions, and a limited ability to customize one’s career around their unique specialization. The purpose of this study is to provide students who major in Visual Communications the information and tools needed to incorporate their ability to adapt and problem solve from their skillset into their search for work. To explore this issue, information was gathered through secondary research that involved data from federal databases, case studies, literature review, and secondary research in general. Return on investment for one’s education is measured in consideration of three primary themes: job satisfaction, income, and quality of life, which may provide hopeful opportunity for professionals in Visual Communications to overcome un/underemployment through career customization

Influences of Display Design and Task Management Strategy on Situation Awareness, Performance, and Workload in Process Control Environments

Process control environments demand well informed high performing human monitors to maintain effectual control of multiple processes. Most research aims to satisfy this requirement through the evaluation of competing heuristic-based display design constructs. Contrary to that method, this study takes a novel approach by examining both factors internal and external to the human observer to identify where beneficial outcomes actually reside. External factors explore the underlying design construct attributes, while internal factors focus on the effect of operator task management strategy, age, and experience. Results from this study present several key findings relative to operator situation awareness, performance, and workload. Findings suggest the specific manner in which external information is presented and oriented on a process control room display is inconsequential toward situation awareness and performance. Further, operator preferred task management strategy has a profound effect on their performance and experienced workload, while exhibiting only a mild effect on situation awareness. In most cases, an Adaptive Attack strategy produces desirable results, while an Adaptive Avoidance does not. Interleaving and Multitasking fall between these two extremes. Lastly, findings indicate subject variables, age and experience have negative effects on overall situation awareness and system deviation prediction times

Adaptability

Adaptability is usually conceived as a psychological capacity that sustains adaptive behaviors, allowing one to face and manage stressors. It promotes adjustment between a person and its environment through a constant, dynamic, and dialectic interaction between them. Adaptability is conceptually and empirically distinct from dispositions such as personality or intelligence, but can be considered as a self-regulation process promoting an adequate person-environment fit (P-E fit), psychological health, and positive career-related outcomes, such as employability, employment, or work engagement. Adaptability evolves according to the circumstances and people can activate their adaptive abilities in adverse situations. Brief psychological interventions increase adaptability, which in turn improves employability and career success

How middle managers draw on cultural resources to shape their behaviors during the orchestration of ambidexterity

This study is motivated by the growing influence in organisational research on the perspective of culture as a toolkit of resources from which individuals can draw on to develop strategies of action. Research has established that ambidextrous organisations succeed both in incremental and discontinuous innovation. However, there remains a scarcity of study on how managers orchestrate ambidexterity. This thesis extends the ambidexterity research by investigating how managers orchestrate ambidextrous strategies and how these strategies are shaped by elements of the organisational culture in high technology firms. An interpretive case study approach was used to achieve the aims of the study. Focusing on two engineering projects, 55 interviews were conducted alongside documentary reviews and participant observation for 6 months at Brush Electrical Machines Ltd, UK. Analysis of the findings is conducted using thematic analysis to identify common themes and NVivo was used to draw out patterns until relationships among the emerging themes became clearer. The thesis makes important contributions to the organisational ambidexterity literature by providing useful empirically-driven insights and deconstructing the roles of middle managers in facilitating ambidexterity. The findings of the research indicate that most of the middle managers demonstrated ambidextrous behaviours. These middle level managers enabled their behaviours through diverse cultural resources selected from the organisation s cultural toolkit. Thus, important contributions are made to the literature on organisational culture, specifically on the toolkit perspectives. The thesis takes the perspective that organisational culture should be viewed as heterogeneous and not homogeneous. The study concludes by suggesting that middle management ambidextrous behaviours shaped by cultural resources may be vital for the realisation of improved or sustained competitiveness in organisations

Relating Planner Task Performance for Container Terminal Operations to Multi-Tasking Skills and Personality Type

Planning the operations within a container terminal is a complex task. It requires planners to demonstrate adaptive behavior while handling stressful, complex, and unexpected situations in today’s dynamic and technology dependent workplace. This paper aims at investigating the role of multi-tasking ability, moderated by an individual’s personality type, in predicting planner task performance using simulation gaming methods. Hierarchical regression analysis results demonstrate that the direct effect of multi-tasking ability on performance is positive and significant. With one exception, the personality traits do not significantly intensify or lessen the impact of multi-tasking in predicting task performance. The personality trait, openness to experience, significantly lessens the impact of multi-tasking ability on performance. Our results suggest that container terminal operators may benefit by considering the above-mentioned results while allocating planning tasks to their employees and new recruits. The instruments used in this research could also be used for evaluating and training candidate planners

Texting and tapping : a dynamical approach to multitasking.

Jobs in various work fields (e.g., flying airplanes; Helmreich, 2000) require a high ability to successfully handle more than one task at a time, or to multitask. Researchers usually explain multitasking by having priorities in which individuals either attend to one task at a time, or one task receives more time processing than the other task. The current study approaches multitasking from a dynamical systems perspective. Fourteen general psychology students participated in the study by pressing a pedal attempting to maintain a steady beat and text messaging. Researchers recorded behavior over time (2 min. for each task and multitasking). The inputs to the data analysis were the X-Y coordinates of thumb movement (in pixels) over time and the recorded beat's deviation (in sec) from the metronome's beat over time. The patterns of behavior were recorded. Nonlinear analyses (Iterated Function Systems and a MANOVA on Hurst exponents for monofractality, and Wavelet Modulus Transform Maxima for multifractality) tested for fractal patterns which characterized both tasks in both conditions (single task or multitasking). Thumb movement's patterns during texting were not significantly different for single task and multitasking conditions, both displaying short-term correlations (brown noise). Patterns in tapping deviations were significantly different between the two conditions. Structure of deviations while only tapping was characterized by strong long-term correlations (pink noise); the structure while multitasking was also positively long-term correlated, but less strong. Results showed that texting and tapping behavior, as single tasks or during multitasking, are fractal

Self Efficacy: A View from Junior High School Students and Its Gender Interaction

Self-efficacy is an essential factor in the learning process of a student. Self-efficacy is the belief in their skills to complete tasks or achieve targets. Many studies on self-efficacy have been carried out, but there are still few that examine the self-efficacy of junior high school students and how gender influences it. Therefore, it is crucial to examine the self-efficacy of junior high school students and investigate differences in student self-efficacy by gender. Data were collected from research respondents of 168 students, with 95 female and 73 male students. This research adopted a quantitative design as data were collected from questionnaires. Results show that in general students' self-efficacy is in the high category. In addition, students' self-efficacy in terms of gender, male and female students both have high self-efficacy.Furthermore, the results of the ANOVA test showed that there was a significant difference between the self-efficacy of female and male students. The average self-efficacy of female students is higher than male students. Studies show that even though male and female students have high self-efficacy, there are still students who have low or even very low self-efficacy. Therefore, it is highly recommended that schools provide bombing and counseling services for these students