Task Performance Dimensions Research Articles

Loss of work-life balance, experience of stress and anxiety among professionals working from home - An exploratory study in a western Indian city

Introduction: Work from Home, (WFH) gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the emphasized positives of flexibility, productivity, efficiency, and saving on commute time. However, over a period of time, experiences of stress, anxiety, and depression started to daunt the WFH employees. A study of the impact of WFH on the work performance, mental health (stress and anxiety), and lifestyle of Indian employees is necessary for the generation of evidence that would contribute to WFH policy building. Methods: The study was done online during the COVID-19 pandemic in the months of April-June 2021. A link to the Google form was posted on the author’s social media platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn. The survey researched individual work performance, perceived stress, and anxiety, lifestyle practices, and experiences of WFH. Results: Participants scored high on the dimensions of task performance and contextual performance. (65.3%) were under moderate stress, and (8.9%) were under high stress, and more than fifty percent (55.4%) were experiencing high-state anxiety. The effect of work distraction on perceived stress and state anxiety was found to be significant (p = 0.004). Also, a significant association was observed between feelings of isolation and high-state anxiety (p = 0.005) and between anxiety and stress (p = 0.000). Conclusion: Teaching and training mindfulness to WFH employees would help in coping with the stress and anxiety attached to WFH. Industries have the opportunity to conceptualize innovative and context-specific strategies to support WFH arrangements and employees’ well-being.

A Comparison of Behavior Cloning Methods in Developing Interactive Opposing-Force Agents

Modern modeling and simulation environments, such as commercial games or military training systems, frequently demand interactive agents that exhibit realistic and responsive behavior in accordance with a predetermined specification, such as a storyboard or military tactics document.Traditional methods for creating agents, such as state machines or behavior trees, necessitate a significant amount of effort for developing state representations and transition processes through manual knowledge engineering. On the other hand, newer techniques for behavior generation, such as deep reinforcement learning, require a vast amount of training data (centuries in many cases), and there is no guarantee that the generated behavior will align with intended objectives and courses of action. This paper examines the application of behavior cloning approaches in designing interactive agents. In our approach, users start by defining desired behavior through straightforward methods such as state machine models or behavior trees. Behavior cloning methods are then used to transform ground-truth trajectory data sampled from these models into differentiable policies that are further refined through engagement with interactive game environments. This method results in improvements in training results when compared on dimensions of task performance and stability of training.

Development and validation of an individual job performance questionnaire (IJPQ).

Developing reliable tools to tap into all the behavioral dimensions of individual job performance and identifying the right sub-dimensions is necessary for both research and practice. This study aimed at developing and validating an IJPQ that addresses shortcomings of existing questionnaires. After a comprehensive systematic literature review, a framework consisting of four dimensions, including task performance (TP), contextual performance (CP), counterproductive work behavior (CWB), and adaptive performance (AP) was structured for measuring IJP. As well, 45 sub-dimensions were identified for measuring IJP's dimensions. Content and face validity were evaluated, and item impact score (IS), content validity index (CVI), Kappa, and content validity ratio (CVR) were calculated. For reliability and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), 525 workers completed the validated questionnaire and Cronbach alpha and goodness of fit indexes were determined, respectively. Of the 62 items generated to measure dimensions, 53 were approved. Based on item-level CVI, of the 53 items, only 45 items were accepted. Finally, the results of item level CVR led to the extraction of 27 questions to evaluate IJP. The obtained scale level CVI and scale level CVR were 0.91 and 0.68, respectively. Based on the results obtained from 525 Iranian workers, values of Cronbach's Alpha, X2/df, RMSEA, and P-value were in the acceptable range. Conclusively, a questionnaire containing 20 items was developed and validated for measuring IJP of Iranian worker's culture. The four dimensions of TP, CO, CWB, and AP consisted of 6, 5, 5, and 4 items each, respectively. Overall, IJPQ is a theory-based, reliable, and valid instrument for assessing job performance.

The Effectiveness of Educative, Supportive, and Administrative Cycle (ESA-C) Clinical Supervision Model in Improving the Performance of Public Hospital Nurses

Consistent supervision affects nurse performance, but in its implementation in nursing care in Indonesia, supervision tends to be more monitoring in nature and lacking the efforts of educating, motivating, training, and directing. The clinical supervision model of Educative, Supportive, and Administrative Cycle (ESA-C) is made to increase the positive value of supervision. The model is synthesized from Kadushin’s and Proctor’ supervision models integrated with Peplau’s interpersonal relationship theory and Watson’s carative factors. The research aims to test the effectiveness of ESA-C clinical supervision model in improving nurse performance using the quasi-experimental design of two group pre-post-tests. Two hospitals were randomly selected from the five public hospitals as the research location. The sample consisted of 90 nurses and 270 patients, taken randomly and purposively, respectively. The results indicate that the ESA-C clinical supervision model was able to significantly improve the nurses’ performance (p-value < 0.05) in the dimensions of task performance: technical skills improved by 2%, patient education 9%, emotional support to patients 14%; and contextual performance: assistance to patients and families improved by 21%. It is recommended that the model be used in nursing care, especially in hospitals, in an attempt of improving nurse performance in providing nursing care to patients.

The impact of substitutes for leadership on job satisfaction and performance

We analyzed the effects of leadership substitute factors on job satisfaction and performance of knowledge workers, based on existing studies on substitutes for leadership. The data were collected from 130 knowledge workers in China via survey questionnaires based on a modified version of the 41-item scale revised by Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1994), a performance scale based on the dimensions of task performance and contextual performance as classified by Motowildo, Borman, and Schmit (1997), and also used in research conducted by Sun and Jiao (2002), and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (Weiss, Dawis, England, & Lofquist, 1967). The findings showed that 7 of the 13 variables of the model of substitutes for leadership proposed by Kerr and Jermier (1978) had positive effects on the job satisfaction and performance of the knowledge workers who took part in this study.

Construct of job performance: Evidence from Chinese military soldiers

The construct of job performance has been one of the important topics in job performance research. The present study investigated the construct of job performance among Chinese military soldiers using both qualitative and quantitative methods. First, after interviewing 95 officers and soldiers, we categorized and conceptualized eight sets of typical behavioural incidents related to soldiers' job performance, and designed a questionnaire measuring job performance. Then, using a sample of 1402 Chinese soldiers, questionnaire reliability and validity were tested, and then the questionnaire was revised. The construct of job performance was further refined using confirmatory factor analyses and regression analyses using another sample of 1068 soldiers. The results showed that Chinese military soldiers' job performance consisted of two dimensions of task performance and contextual performance. Furthermore, task performance had three subfactors: military training, task accomplishment and work capability, whereas contextual performance encompassed four factors: helping others, love of learning, promoting organizational benefit and self‐discipline. Task performance and contextual performance contributed independently to overall job performance.

Sex Differences In Children's Task-Group Performance

It is widely believed that males are more competent at task-group activity. This article critically examines the bases for asserting a sex difference in task-group ability. The argument focuses on the need to separate the effects of ability from the effects of opportunity to perform. A study is then presented that controls for the hypothesized contaminating effects of status and sex-biased activity. Children ages 3 to 8 were randomly assigned to sex, age, and race homogeneous three-person groups and asked to engage in a complex, sex-neutral task. On 13 task performance dimensions there was only one significant difference. The remaining 12 dimensions showed mixed but insignificant differences. The conclusion is that both males and females can manage complex task-group activity.

Accuracy versus speed in the generalized effort of learning-disabled children.

Reinforcement of effortful performance in a given academic task has been found to increase the subsequent performance of other academic tasks. The learned-effort hypothesis assumes that individuals learn which dimensions of task performance are correlated with reinforcement of high effort, and generalize across tasks. Therefore, reinforcement of increased effort in a given dimension of one task should result in greater generalized effort in the same dimension of transfer performance than in another dimension. In accord with this view, preadolescent learning-disabled students who received points for high reading accuracy subsequently produced more accurate drawings and stories than did students whose points had been based upon high reading speed or upon mere completion of the reading task. Students who received points for high reading speed subsequently constructed stories more quickly than did children whose points had been based upon high reading accuracy or upon reading-task completion. Consistent with the more explicit and frequent feedback for accuracy than for speed in most academic tasks, generalized accuracy was much more durable than generalized speed.