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Back to the Performance Improvement Journal Home PageJanuary, 2004 Editor’s Notes: Improving Performance in the New Year
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Executive Summaries
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| Emerging Dimensions of Needs Assessment by James W. Altschuld Our understanding of need, needs assessment (NA), and how to conduct such assessments is slowly evolving. In this article, following a brief discussion about the nature of needs and the needs assessment process, six examples of subtle developments in the field are described. The general emphasis underlying these developments is that NA is more than a technical endeavor--one that could affect organizational change and behavior. Recommendations for the future of NA are provided in conclusion. Scenario-Based E-Learning Design by Kathleen Iverson, PhD, and Deborah Colky, EdD Recognizing the need for a scenario-based model that addresses the theoretical underpinnings of adult learning, incorporates principles of performance management, and applies them to an e-learning environment, this article introduces a design model for creating and implementing scenario-based e-learning with a focus on authoring goal-based scenarios. The theory on which the model is based includes collaborative learning, constructivism, contextual learning, and metacognitive theory. A scenario-building process is introduced along with suggestions for writing style. Finally, recommendations for the delivery, facilitation, implementation, and evaluation of scenario-based e-learning are presented. Preparing Instructors for Synchronous E-Learning Facilitation by George Piskurich E-learning initiatives have become increasingly prevalent in the last few years as human performance technology practitioners look for ways to lower costs and increase learning effectiveness. For a number of reasons, clients are much less sanguine about flying both learners and facilitators to learning activities, while the business downturn has motivated them to ask if there are efficient ways to deliver training interventions. This article provides training administrators and the trainers of synchronous e-learning facilitators with a framework they can use to build an effective training program for their synchronous e-learning facilitators. New e-learning facilitators can use the information as well to help determine what they need to learn to make themselves more effective as synchronous instructors. A Little DOPSS Will Do You: A New Approach to Training, Knowledge Management, and Problem Solving by Steven C. Schatz Training as an intervention works fine in jobs that remain relatively static long enough to go through the instructional development process and to achieve a decent return on investment. However, in an information economy, jobs change quickly, often for each project. Knowledge management systems are too often just repositories of objects, not addressing the nature of knowledge as a dynamic interaction between information and knower. In this environment, a new class of intervention is needed. This article describes the emergence of performance support systems called DOPSS--Dynamic Online Performance Support Systems--that are user-centric. User evaluations drive the function set, the tagging schema, and users’ requests while uploads provide objects that allow a target population with homogeneous information needs to support itself. This article discusses the underlying ideas behind DOPSS systems and discusses current and future directions. Evaluating Performance Improvement by Donald J. Ford, PhD, CPT Human performance technology (HPT) is a systematic, results-based approach to solving performance problems that requires rigorous evaluation. Yet HPT practitioners are struggling to evaluate HPT with outdated models designed solely for training interventions. This article provides two key contributions to the field of HPT evaluation:
This new HPT evaluation model links the outcome of the HPT process model with those of HPT evaluation, as it is the outputs that clients care most about. If HPT professionals wish to reap the benefits of HPT, we must be committed to measuring the results of HPT interventions and using evaluation to both improve the practice of HPT and demonstrate its benefits. |
