The mental model comparison of expert and novice performance improvement practitioners

The primary purpose of this study was to reveal performance improvement practitioner expert and novice mental models and identify differences and similarities between these models. The secondary purpose was to analyze the potential relationships of the professional profile characteristics of performance improvement practitioners with their mental model of expertise derived from Pathfinder scaling algorithm. The study was stemmed from one of the critical research trends in the field of Human Performance Technology (HPT). There are two phases of the study. In the first round of the first phase, experts, who were selected based on several criteria, were contacted to identify the most critical concepts related the HPT. The Online Ranking Questionnaire was utilized. 23 experts were responded, and 11 of 30 concepts were selected. In the second round of the first phase, the experts who responded to the first round were contacted again to share their professional profile characteristics and ratings about the concept-pairs generated from the 11 concepts. These ratings provided the proximity data necessary to generate the common mental models of expert (the expert referent model) in the KNOT using the Pathfinder algorithm. The Professional Profile Characteristics and The Concept-Pairs Comparison online questionnaires were used. 16 experts responded in this round. In the second phase of the study, practitioners in the field were invited to participate in the study via International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) newsletters, The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) discussion forums, and Association for Educational Communications and Technologies (AECT) mailing list. Moreover, professional social networking sites, e.g., Linked-In, and the researcher personal contact list were used as well to increase return-rate. Practitioners were asked to complete the same online questionnaires completed by the experts in the second round of the first phase. 335 practitioners started the questionnaires; 272 completed the Professional Profile Characteristics questionnaire; 242 completed both the Professional Profile Characteristics and the Concept-Pairs Comparison questionnaires. 33 practitioners of 242 were identified as novices who were selected based on the criteria used to select experts. In contrast to the experts, the novices were chosen as those who do not meet all of the criteria. The proximity data of those 33 novices were used to create the common mental model of novices. The common mental model of experts demonstrated more coherent and hierarchical structure. However, the common mental model of novices was in more linear structure. The models were also compared, and the experts\u27 model was different from the novices\u27 model. The expert model had deep structure of practical knowledge; whereas, the novice model contained step-by-step and textbook style structure. The professional profile characteristics of the practitioners and the experts were also presented. Several relationships found between the professional profile characteristics and the mental model of expertise, which was generated from three Pathfinder measures: relatedness, coherence, and similarity. The mental model of expertise was positively associated with the number of organizations worked, the number of completed projects, the diversity of project types, the number of the HPT related courses taught; whereas, it was negatively associated with the total years spent to earn degrees. There were several implications of the current study. The first is either informal or formal approaches for the development of expertise. This study may enlighten the mentoring novices while progressing to expertise in the field. Colleges, universities and other types of institutions providing education or training for performance improvement practitioners may take advantage of the results of this study by improving their course or curriculum designs with additional experiences. Moreover, the professional organizations, such as ISPI and ASTD, may be informed with this study for their certification and designation programs. They may include new rationale and criteria for assessment and evaluation processes. This study also may provide additional information from the expertise perspective to the efforts related to the development of competencies in the performance improvement field. Finally, future studies were recommended. The first recommendation was the replication of the current study with different sample characteristics and sizes. The future studies regarding expertise in HPT may consider different using different research design and knowledge elicitation techniques. Since the current study utilized stand-alone concepts, the studies examining groups of stand-alone concepts with common characteristics may provide more meaningful and overarching interpretations. There were numerous either demographic, e.g., age, or professional, e.g., years of experience, deliberate practice, and so forth, factors influencing in expertise in either general or more specific to performance improvement field. These factors needed to be analyzed to reveal the relationships with the progression to expertise

Continuing Change in a Virtual World: Training and Recruiting Instructors

The process of teacher identification, selection, initial training, and on-going professional development that has developed at the Illinois Virtual High School (IVHS) over the past seven years is described and discussed in this article. Validation was based upon existing practices and research. To provide background the creation and initial development of the IVHS is described. Some of the issues within the hiring process and professional development that the IVHS continues to struggle are examined including teacher certification and the changing nature of technology. The paper concludes with a recommendation that teacher education programs assist in addressing these challenges to support IVHS and other virtual schools

Career Planning with Careerforward: Exploring Student Perceptions and Experiences in an Online Career Preparation Course

In April 2006, the Michigan State Board of Education and Michigan Legislatures adopted a rigorous package of high school graduation requirements, one of which made Michigan the first state that incorporated an online learning graduation requirement into the K‐12 curriculum. All Michigan\u27s students entering high school during 2008‐2009 school year were required to complete online learning during their course of high school studies in order to graduate. Michigan Virtual School helped the schools in Michigan to fulfill this requirement by developing a 20‐hour online learning course called “Career Forward”. In December 2008, the Michigan Virtual University provided the National Repository of Online Courses access to the CareerForward course content, allowing students from anywhere in the United States, the ability to access CareerForward free of charge. This evaluation study was conducted to provide Michigan Virtual School with information to improve the design and delivery of the Career Forward course, in order to improve the learning experiences of the future student and to improve the overall efficiency of the course. Analysis of data from this research indicated that, CareerForward in its current format had very little impact on student attitude towards career planning. Recommendations for changes in design and delivery options of the course for future offerings are suggested in order to make the course more effective and to meet its objectives

Öğretmen yetiştirme programının gelecekteki teknoloji kullanımı için teknoloji eğitimi bakımından değerlendirilmesi : Burdur, Sınıf Öğretmenliği Bölümü durum çalışması.

The purpose of the study is to reveal pre-service teachers̕ technology competencies during their four-year teacher training program at Burdur School of Education, Süleyman Demirel University in Turkey. The sample size is 1086 students from Primary School Teacher Education department. 262 is 1st year, 269 is 2nd year, 288 is 3rd year, and 265 is 4th year students. 435 are males, and 644 are females. The research design is non-experimental survey. Technology Use Self-Competency scale (TUSS) was used for the study. Reliability of the instrument is .96. The study is indicated that most of the pre-service teachers felt themselves as intermediate technology user. The descriptive, correlation, regression and higher-way ANOVA are applied. Gender, years of computer use and computer ownership and having access to internet variables are associated with significantly to technology use self-competency scores. Also the most useful predictor of technology use self competency is years of computer use. Finally, there is significant difference among categories of computer ownership and internet access, gender, years of computer on technology use self-competency. The recommendations and directions to future researches are presented.M.S. - Master of Scienc

Effects of the Integrated Online Advance Organizer Teaching Materials on Students' Science Achievement and Attitude

This two-group quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of the Online Advance Organizer Concept Teaching Material (ONACOM) integrated with inquiry teaching and expository teaching methods. Grade 7 students' posttest performances on the light unit achievement and light unit attitude tests controlled for gender, previous semester science grade, and pretest scores were analyzed. No significant treatment effects were found between the inquiry and expository approaches. However, both groups demonstrated significant pretest-posttest gains in achievement and attitude. Independent from the method used, ONACOM was judged effective in both groups as students demonstrated increased achievement and attitude scores. ONACOM has a social and semantic network-aided infrastructure that can be adapted to both methods to increase students' achievement and improve their attitude

What foresees college students’ tendency to use facebook for diverse educational purposes?

Abstract The present study investigates some factors affecting college students’ tendency to use Facebook for different educational purposes. We reached 120 participants who were college students. Our sample comprised of 63 (52.5%) females and 57 (47.5%) males. We applied convenience sampling technique and an online questionnaire to collect data. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression analysis, and Structural Equation Modelling using IBM SPSS AMOS were utilized. The findings provide that GPA, Personal Use of Facebook for Studying and Socialization, Autonomy Psychological Need, and Academic Procrastination foresee college students’ willingness to use Facebook in their courses. GPA and Personal Use of Facebook for studying are the most influential factors while Autonomy Psychological Need is the least impactful. We also examined the impact of these factors on different educational use types of Facebook: communication, collaboration, resources and material sharing. The results are discussed, and further recommendations for future research and implications are presented in the current study

Exploring the Influence of Countries’ Economic Conditions on Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Participation: A Study of 3.5 Million MITx Learners

It is well known that there are disparities in access to education around the world, with developed countries generally having better educational resources and opportunities compared to developing countries. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been proposed as a way to bridge this gap by providing free or low-cost online education to anyone with an Internet connection. This study aimed to better understand the effects of location, both country and region, on the use of MOOCs, using data from 3.5 million learners who registered for MOOCs offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The data set provided a broad picture of how MOOCs are being used around the globe. The results of the study indicated significant differences in the use of MOOCs among students from different countries and their corresponding economic levels. In order to address these differences and improve access to education through MOOCs, the study suggested several actions that could be taken. These include providing better infrastructure and support for MOOC learners in developing countries, increasing awareness of and access to MOOCs in these regions, and working to improve the quality and relevance of MOOC offerings. Overall, the study highlighted the potential of MOOCs to bridge the educational gap between developed and developing countries, but also emphasized the need for continued efforts to remove barriers and improve access to these resources

Beyond Jeopardy and Lectures: Using Microsoft PowerPoint as a Game Tool to Teach Science

To date, research involving homemade PowerPoint games as an instructional tool has not shown statistically significant gains in student performance. This paper examines the results of a study comparing the performance of students in a high school chemistry course who created homemade PowerPoint games as a test review with the students who used a traditional study guide on two separate unit tests. Students scored significantly higher on one of the two unit tests; however, there was no difference in performance between students who created games multiple times. This was the first time a significant difference has been reported when using homemade PowerPoint games. More work is needed to determine which of the three philosophical justifications contributed to this significant result, as previous studies found at least one of these justifications to be lacking in the student