Sort Of Expertise Research Articles

Development of the Mentoring in Undergraduate Research Survey.

Here we present the development of the Mentoring in Undergraduate Research Survey (MURS) as a measure of a range of mentoring experienced by undergraduate science researchers. We drafted items based on qualitative research and refined the items through cognitive interviews and expert sorting. We used one national dataset to evaluate the internal structure of the measure and a second national dataset to examine how responses on the MURS related to theoretically relevant constructs and student characteristics. Our factor analytic results indicate seven lower order forms of mentoring experiences: abusive supervision, accessibility, technical support, psychosocial support, interpersonal mismatch, sexual harassment, and unfair treatment. These forms of mentoring mapped onto two higher-order factors: supportive and destructive mentoring experiences. Although most undergraduates reported experiencing supportive mentoring, some reported experiencing absence of supportive as well as destructive experiences. Undergraduates who experienced less supportive and more destructive mentoring also experienced lower scientific integration and a dampening of their beliefs about the value of research. The MURS should be useful for investigating the effects of mentoring experienced by undergraduate researchers and for testing interventions aimed at fostering supportive experiences and reducing or preventing destructive experiences and their impacts.

Professional Standards in Questioned Documents Expertises

Criminalistic/forensic expert examination of documents is a segment of criminal technique, i.e. forensic science. In modern countries, these activities are undertaken by highly specialized services that are frequently under the control of various security structures (judiciary, police, immigration services, etc.). In Bosnia and Herzegovina (as well as in the countries of the former Yugoslavia), these jobs have traditionally been associated with police agencies whose actions fall into the sphere of criminal techniques (more recently, forensics). Certain methods of behaving, ways of functioning, as well as processes linked to staff training and ways of acting within individual activities of this sort of expertise, have been formed via the accomplishment of the aforementioned duties. The purpose of this article is to introduce the field of criminal expert examination of questioned documents, namely the knowledge and conditions that a welltrained expert in this field should have. Furthermore, the work demonstrates in greater detail how the necessary insights and knowledge should be gathered. The fundamental reason for this work´s theme is the goal to describe this field from the standpoint of modern science, profession, and established standards that are used around the world. Another motive is the goal to explain the settings of this sector in a scientific and practical manner from the standpoint of international experience. Specifically, the article will examine some of the international standards and procedures for this field of expertise. The preceding study will be based on a survey of comparative literature as well as an examination of the standards and practices of organizations such as: The Scientific Working Group for Forensic Document Examination (SWGDOC), American Board of Forensic Document Examiners (ABFDE), American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), American National Standards Institute (ANSI), The American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE), Southwestern Association of Forensic Document Examiners (SWAFDE), Southeastern Association of Forensic Document Examiners (SAFDE) and The European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI).

Automated seizure onset zone locator from resting-state functional MRI in drug-resistant epilepsy.

Accurate localization of a seizure onset zone (SOZ) from independent components (IC) of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) improves surgical outcomes in children with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE). Automated IC sorting has limited success in identifying SOZ localizing ICs in adult normal rs-fMRI or uncategorized epilepsy. Children face unique challenges due to the developing brain and its associated surgical risks. This study proposes a novel SOZ localization algorithm (EPIK) for children with DRE. EPIK is developed in a phased approach, where fMRI noise-related biomarkers are used through high-fidelity image processing techniques to eliminate noise ICs. Then, the SOZ markers are used through a maximum likelihood-based classifier to determine SOZ localizing ICs. The performance of EPIK was evaluated on a unique pediatric DRE dataset (n = 52). A total of 24 children underwent surgical resection or ablation of an rs-fMRI identified SOZ, concurrently evaluated with an EEG and anatomical MRI. Two state-of-art techniques were used for comparison: (a) least squares support-vector machine and (b) convolutional neural networks. The performance was benchmarked against expert IC sorting and Engel outcomes for surgical SOZ resection or ablation. The analysis was stratified across age and sex. EPIK outperformed state-of-art techniques for SOZ localizing IC identification with a mean accuracy of 84.7% (4% higher), a precision of 74.1% (22% higher), a specificity of 81.9% (3.2% higher), and a sensitivity of 88.6% (16.5% higher). EPIK showed consistent performance across age and sex with the best performance in those < 5 years of age. It helped achieve a ~5-fold reduction in the number of ICs to be potentially analyzed during pre-surgical screening. Automated SOZ localization from rs-fMRI, validated against surgical outcomes, indicates the potential for clinical feasibility. It eliminates the need for expert sorting, outperforms prior automated methods, and is consistent across age and sex.

Univerzalnost facijalnih ekspresija - interakcija biologije i kulture

The majority of people almost effortlessly read emotions based on the facial expressions of other people. Numerous studies suggest that even newborns are showing interest in faces and facial expressions suggesting that this ability might be relevant from the evolutionary standpoint. This is additionally supported by cross-cultural studies that clearly demonstrate the existence of a limited number of basic emotions which are universal. Furthermore, the influence of culture and the living environment is evident regarding emotional display and recognition accuracy. From a developmental standpoint, available data suggest that the development of facial expressions recognition could be described by an inverted U curve. Starting from childhood through adulthood, we are developing the same sort of expertise in facial expression recognition. Later, with aging, the recognition of particular expressions is declining. The exact underlying mechanisms that play a role here are not fully grasped yet. In this review, we shortly summarized previous studies that investigated the universality of facial expressions and cultural effects on facial expressions recognition. Furthermore, the potential developmental courses were explained and some of the open questions were outlined regarding this topic.

Novices Perform Like Experts on a Closed Card Sort but Not an Open Card Sort

Developing good psychological measures benefits from the input of content experts. For many constructs or domains, however, who constitutes an ‘expert’ might be ill-defined. Novices—such as students, customers, or co-workers—may possess the same knowledge as experts. Moreover, as convenience samples, novices are more readily available and less costly. Card sorting is a technique frequently used in human factors to elicit expert knowledge. This study compared novice and expert performance on a card sort task under two conditions, an open sort and a closed sort. Because the closed sort offered a category structure for sorting, it was predicted and found that novices in the closed sort tended to match expert sorting results more closely than in the open sort. The structure also made novice solutions better approximate the expert open sort. This suggests that novices can be useful in the follow-up stage of measure development, but not in the initial stage.

The Spring

The Spring Sheila R. Lamb (bio) That squirrel sat right in the middle of the chicken's feed pan, stuffing his fat cheeks full of corn crumble. Ice and snow pelted down, and then hens were underfoot, eager for their evening meal. Though those birds would peck a mouse to death or quarter a toad—a foursome group effort, each hen heading in its own cardinal direction—they shied away from the squirrels. Used to be I'd let [End Page 80] my hound out with the chickens. She'd corner a squirrel quick, catch it by the neck, and shake it until the life was gone. I didn't have a dog anymore—I figured it might outlive me if I got one now—so I made for the manure shovel. I raised it, took aim, and smashed the squirrel, right on the skull. Left it in the pan. Let the hens gather round. Weather as it was didn't bode well for the squirrels or for anyone who might be driving on the mountain. When you get winter up here, it works something like this: snow and rain stick to the road and then turns into an icy sort of slush. What people don't get when they come up here to hike the trail is the altitude. They don't understand the concept of high-up. They think "country" not "mountain," until they spin out in their underprepared SUV and get caught in the ditch that runs alongside our road. Later, after the storm, Bobby tugs them out in the tow, because ice, altitude, and steep incline don't mix, at least not here on the line between South and Mountain. The ditch is a waterway, and the spring that fills it begins in my backyard. It's the water for which our entire county is named because somewhere east the spring turns into a river, into a bay, into an ocean, but here it is my backyard spring and its run-off is the reason for precarious driving on our mountain road. Way back, Eric wanted to make the spring a tourist site. Charge them a dollar or two to come and see, but the county supervisors ruled no. Said it would be too much traffic or somesuch, even though it takes some doing to find our road and the section of trail it intersects. Eric wanted to bring the tourists up anyhow. "You can't get people up here without a sign to it," I argued. "And as soon as you set out that sign, Bobby'll come on up and take it down." In addition to driving the tow truck, Bobby was also a county supervisor. No stopping him making money [End Page 81] on the side but it was the rest of us that had to kowtow to his rules. "Bobby can't stop us from doing what we want on our own property, Sarah." What you want to do, I thought loudly. But I only said, "I think he just did." "It's our spring. One of a kind. Marked from here to the ocean." I rolled my eyes and shut my mouth. Eric had been a geologist who also fancied himself some sort of expert in tourism and natural springs. Jacob I could talk to, but not Eric. No point in it. After a quarter century of marriage, I knew that Eric would push to do what he wanted but I wasn't going to give in on the spring. I wasn't going to let him give Bobby Winetree a reason to set foot on our property. Bobby didn't like us none since we bought the cabin twenty some-odd years ago. I had settled in and taught school local while Eric kept one foot in the outside world. Traveled in and out of airports for his geologist work or his mistress meetings, I supposed. I got me a henhouse, a dog, a truck, and then started the egg business which seemed to please most everyone at the time, including Bobby. Enough people done left our mountain, left the county for city work. Bobby learned to be glad for...

Social Risk Assessment of Engineering Project Based on Ordered Voting Model

In the process of urban construction, the implementation of various engineering projects will lead to a series of social problems. If these problems are not effectively resolved, they will be further upgraded into social risks and have a negative impact on social order. At present, China’s social risk assessment methods mainly include expert scoring and expert sorting. The paper takes the method of expert sorting as the main research object. Based on the ordered voting model, this paper further analyses the scientific nature of the ranking method from the aspects of single index evaluation and multi-index evaluation.

Philosophical expertise beyond intuitions

In what sense, if any, are philosophers experts in their domain of research and what could philosophical expertise be? The above questions are particularly pressing given recent methodological disputes in philosophy. The so-called expertise defense recently proposed as a reply to experimental philosophers postulates that philosophers are experts qua having improved intuitions. However, this model of philosophical expertise has been challenged by studies suggesting that philosophers’ intuitions are no less prone to biases and distortions than intuitions of non-philosophers. Should we then give up on the idea that philosophers possess some sort of expertise? In this paper, I argue that instead of focusing on intuitions, we may understand the relevant results of philosophical practice more broadly and investigate the other kind(s) of expertise they would require. My proposal is inspired by a prominent approach to investigating expert performance from psychology and suggests where and how to look for expertise in the results characteristic of philosophical practice. In developing this model, I discuss the following three candidates for such results: arguments, theories, and distinctions. Whether philosophers could be shown to be expert intuiters or not, there are interesting domains where we could look for philosophical expertise, beyond intuitions.

Of Umpires, Judges, and Metaphors: Adjudication in Aesthetic Sports and Its Implications for Law

In his confirmation hearings, Chief Justice Roberts famously described his vision of the judicial role as analogous to that of an umpire. “Judges are like umpires,” he said. “Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them.” The Chief Justice was, of course, hardly the first to draw this analogy, and he will certainly not be the last. The comparison is natural, for both roles require their occupant to “make the call,” or, more formally, to serve as the presumptively final adjudicator of the rights of competing parties.Yet while the “judge as umpire” seems to have naturally captured the imagination of judges, commentators, and laypersons alike, it has also come in for its share of critique, with critics pointing out the various ways in which the comparison is inapt. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned distinction is that judges, unlike umpires, and contrary to the Chief Justice’s suggestion, actually do have to role to play in the creation and refinement of the rules they must apply. Thus, commentators have proposed substitute analogies, including the “justice as commissioner” and “justice as color commentator.”This essay’s goal is not to add to these critiques, but rather to suggest that there is a better analogy — the somewhat less euphonious notion of the “judge as judge.” The best sporting analogy to judges in law may be to their namesakes in sport — the judges who provide the authoritative scoring in what philosophers of sport call “aesthetic sports,” such as gymnastics and figure skating.Judges in aesthetic sports, like their counterparts in law, derive a substantial portion of their authority and legitimacy from the expertise they bring to the position. Both play a significant role in shaping the content of the governing standards and draw, to a considerable degree, on their “tacit knowledge” in shaping and applying the rules. At the same time, however, their reliance on this sort of expertise — which necessarily entails the application of criteria unavailable or at least opaque to the lay observer or even the less expert participant — creates an opening for skepticism. Observers will often be unable to determine for themselves whether judges of either sort have accurately assessed the merits, and their efforts to do so will often lead them to assessments that differ from the judges, likely because the lay observer will not have accounted for all the factors that an expert judge considers. Because these observers cannot access all the factors driving the experts’ decisions and, thus, cannot fully understand them, they can easily conclude that those decisions are being driven by improper factors. Of course, judges in aesthetic sports have been accused, and occasionally found to be guilty, of corruption, as well as less pernicious forms of bias. The same is true of judges in law. Indeed, given the enormous cognitive demands associated with judging aesthetic sports, it is unsurprising that some extraneous factors influence officials’ determinations. That, too, can be said about judging in law.

Towards a hermeneutic shift in psychiatry.

Psychiatry is currently going through a crisis of confidence (1). Some medical commentators have even questioned the very credibility of the profession (2). There are many indicators of this crisis. For example, leading up to the launch of DSM-5 by the American Psychiatric Association last year, the chairperson of the DSM-IV task force raised serious questions about the validity of the whole DSM process (3), echoing earlier criticisms by the chairperson of the DSM-III (4). It is clear that psychiatry has been a particular target of the marketing strategies of the pharmaceutical industry (5), strategies that have led to the corruption of evidence-based medicine in general (6). Much-heralded advances in antipsychotic psychopharmacology are now revealed as “spurious” (7). Academic psychiatry's attempt to transform itself into a sort of “applied neuroscience” (8) has consumed enormous resources but delivered very little for patients. A. Kleinman has called it an “extraordinary failure” and stated that “academic psychiatry has become more or less irrelevant to clinical practice” (9). In the U.S., where the practice of psychiatry has been most dominated by the DSM, neuroscience and the pharmaceutical industry, clinical work has become equated with the prescription of drugs. The New York Times carried a story in 2011 in which a psychiatrist spoke of having to train himself not to get too close to his patients and “not to get too interested in their problems” (10). Our discipline is in trouble. There are several dimensions to the current crisis, but one of the most important difficulties is around the perennial question of what is an appropriate epistemology for psychiatry. What sort of knowledge can we have with regard to mental illness and what sort of expertise is possible? The current technological paradigm that dominates psychiatric thought (11) is based on the idea that episodes of mental illness arise from abnormalities in specific neural, or psychological, pathways or processes. Furthermore, it assumes that these can be grasped with the same sort of de-contextualized, causal logic that is used to explain problems of the liver or lungs. The authority of psychiatry and the power invested in it are often justified on the basis that it possesses, or is on the way to possess, a science that can predict outcomes, based on an accurate map of the underlying processes (12). Therefore, debates about epistemology are not simply an intellectual exercise. Many psychiatrists feel that they cannot be “real doctors” unless their discipline is grounded in the natural science epistemology that guides the rest of medicine. In this short discussion, I do not intend to engage with the wider ethical and political dimensions of the current crisis; rather I simply wish to make the case that natural science methods reach their limits in the territory of mental health and illness. This is largely a territory of meanings, values and relationships, an assertion now supported by a large body of empirical evidence about how psychiatric interventions actually work (11). I argue that, if we are to be truly “evidence-based” in our discipline, we need a radical rethinking of our guiding epistemology: a move from reductionism to hermeneutics.

Un médico higienista buscando ordenar el mundo urbano argentino de comienzos del siglo XX

As part of the discourse of progress and the promises of science, hygiene as a discipline has been playing the role of a great advisor, a sort of expert in the art of observing, correcting, improving and trying to change the health of the social body and the modern nation. In that context hygiene even imagined alternative or utopian cities. Emilio Coni, perhaps the most distinguished hygienist of the end of the 19th century and the beginnings of the 20th, imagined one of such cities. The following notes aim at contextualizing his Argentine ideal city. The original version of Coni's text, published in La Semana Medica on April 3, 1919, is also included.

Initial Development of a Measure of Honest Impression Management in the Employment Interview

Research indicates that in employment interviews, interviewee use of impression management (IM) can have a substantial impact on interview outcomes. IM can include behaviors intended to create an impression of competence (self- promotion), likability (ingratiation), and avoid negative impressions (defensive IM). Interestingly, IM behaviors can be both honest and deceptive. For instance, an individual may try to create an impression of competence by pointing out true past experiences (honest IM) or they may pretend to have a qualification they do not (deceptive IM). Despite the fact that theorists note the importance of differentiating between honest and deceptive IM, measurement in IM has not distinguished these two important constructs. Although a measure of deceptive IM has recently been created, no measure of honest IM exists to date. As such, the goal of the present study was to develop a measure of honest IM in the interview. We report the results of three studies designed to create such a scale. In the first phase, we generated items, and had subject matter experts sort these into content domains. In the second phase, we administered our remaining items to a sample of online individuals who had recently completed an interview (N = 300) and ran an exploratory factor analysis. In the third study, we had students who had recently completed a job interview (N = 75) complete the items, and ran a confirmatory factor analysis. Future directions for further validation and use of this scale are discussed.

Reviews of Eloquent science: a practical guide to becoming a better writer, speaker and atmospheric scientist, by David M. Schultz (2009), and Presentation skills for scientists, by Edward Sanders &amp; Lindsay MacLeod (2010)

Not an inveterate producer of bad science, mediocre writing or boring presentations, I have nonetheless yet to master all forms of science communication. This review of Eloquent science and Presentation skills for scientists is written from the point of view of a practicing scientist always interested in building competence rather than any sort of expert on science communication. In fact, at the time ofmy first reading of Eloquent science, I was rewriting a paper that had not, shall we say, passed gracefully through the peerreview process. Schultz&rsquo;s book provided useful guidance that improved the paper at once. While there are plenty of books on communication skills for scientists, there is no doubt many students and professionals would benefit as I have from Schultz&rsquo;s thorough how-to guide to becoming a better communicator of science. (Published: 4 April 2011) Citation: Polar Research 2011, 30, 7036, DOI: 10.3402/polar.v30i0.7036

Imperial Myopia: Some Lessons from Two Invasions of Iraq

This article tries to chart some of the parallels between the British Mesopotamia Campaign in the First World War and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Both campaigns were justified by faulty or contrived intelligence; both were launched with little consideration of the future potential needs of the liberated/occupied territory; and both were characterized by a lack of planning and clear objectives. However, in spite of their obvious paternalism, several military and civilian members of the British-Indian expedition had a fair understanding of the Middle East, Arabic, Islam, tribal society, and so on; this sort of expertise was almost completely absent both among those planning, and among those running, the US invasion of 2003. While I am not entirely convinced that later generations can learn lessons from the experience of earlier ones, I am reasonably sure that few historical actors have spent very much time considering whether or how far they might in fact be able to learn such lessons from what might seem to be at least roughly comparable situations. Hardly any, it can only be imagined, could have been quite as cavalier - in this as in so many other areas - as the Bush Administration, in its ill-conceived and inadequately thought out invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In many ways, the blunders and errors of judgement, whose consequences resonate so loudly, today are eerily reminiscent of the failings of the British Mesopotamia Campaign in 1914-1917, although the very much more primitive communications and other technological inadequacies meant that the mistakes of the earlier campaign were perhaps more excusable, or more understandable, than the more recent ones of the American invasion. In what follows I will try to draw what I hope are some not too far-fetched parallels between the British invasion and occupation of Mesopotamia during the First World War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its aftermath. Very briefly, basing its actions largely on what turned out to be unfounded reports of Ottoman troops massing in lower Iraq, the Military Department of the Government of India despatched Indian Expeditionary Force (IEF) 'D,' to the Gulf on October 16, 1914. The Allies declared war on the Ottoman Empire on November 5, and IEF 'D' landed at Fao three days later. The scope of the holding operation that the force originally had been charged with carrying out soon became dramatically enlarged; Basra was taken early in December, and after the arrival of reinforcements the force proceeded slowly towards central Iraq. By October 1915 it had reached 'Aziziya, some 50 miles from Baghdad. At this point more Ottoman troops actually materialized, and British troops were obliged to retreat, first to Ctesiphon and finally to Kut, where they endured the bitter hardships of a five-month siege and ultimate surrender. As a result of this reversal, and as news of the appalling deficiencies of supply and medical provisions in Mesopotamia gradually reached London, the Military Department of the Government of India was relieved of its command. On February 3, 1916, IEF 'D' became the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force (MEF), and the War Office took full charge of operations. Eventually, more substantial reinforcements were despatched; British forces entered Baghdad on March 10, 1917, and their commander's zealousness ensured the capture of Mosul some three days after the Armistice of Mudros (the end of hostilities between the Allies and the Ottomans) on October 30, 1918. In the course of the negotiations at the Paris peace conference, the governance of Lebanon and Syria was assigned to France, and that of Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan to Britain. The entry of the United States into the war in the autumn of 1917 ensured that the straightforward colonization or imperial absorption of conquered territories would no longer be possible; hence, the former Ottoman provinces became mandates, under the ultimate supervision of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the newly established League of Nations. …

Bioethics as a Second-Order Discipline: Who Is Not a Bioethicist?

A dispute exists about whether bioethics should become a new discipline with its own methods, competency standards, duties, honored texts, and core curriculum. Unique expertise is a necessary condition for disciplines. Using the current literature, different views about the sort of expertise that might be unique to bioethicists are critically examined to determine if there is an expertise that might meet this requirement. Candidates include analyses of expertise based in "philosophical ethics," "casuistry," "atheoretical or situation ethics," "conventionalist relativism," "institutional guidance," "regulatory guidance and compliance," "political advocacy," "functionalism," and "principlism." None succeed in identifying a unique area of expertise for successful bioethicists that could serve as a basis for making it a new discipline. Rather expertise in bioethics is rooted in many professions, disciplines and fields and best understood as a second-order discipline.

128 Steps Common to How Many Creators Create and Become Creative Combining Recommendations and Recollections of Becoming Creative and Being Creative by Creators in 63 Fields

128 Steps Common to How Many Creators Create and Become Creative Combining Recommendations and Recollections of Becoming Creative and Being Creative by Creators in 63 Fields

Pragmatism and Democracy: In Search of Deliberative Publics

Pragmatism sees continuity between the problem-solving efforts of experts and lay citizens. All problem-solving is experimental inquiry under conditions of uncertainty, and involves a number of inquirers rather than the solitary thinker. Social problem-solving in particular features an ever-changing agenda to which particular sorts of expertise may be relevant, but for which any single sort of expertise is rarely conclusive. In this context, the decisive test of any argument or claim is to be found in its application in political problem-solving practice. Publics can then be constituted around particular problem-solving efforts (though Dewey also spoke of the public).

Bryophytes and the morphospecies concept: a comparison of novice and expert sorting

THE exclusion of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) from the majority of impact assessment and monitoring studies is probably due to key characters being microscopic and difficult to work with given limited resources. Coarse morphological groups have been used in rangeland monitoring where a level of identification accessible to amateurs successfully separated different soil crust groups (Eldridge and Rosentreter 1999). However, there has been only one study of the feasibility of using a morphospecies approach for bryophytes. Oliver and Beattie (1993) included mosses in their study of the comparison of the results of "biodiversity technicians" and expert taxonomists. They found that novices split and lump many moss species. The bryoflora they investigated was species-rich with 86 species found in 220 specimens. In this study, I investigate a different environment with a level of species richness that is more typical of many dry sclerophyll forests (Pharo and Beattie 1997). Novices collected the specimens as well as sorted, which is a realistic replication of the task facing biologists when undertaking biodiversity surveys or establishing monitoring studies. Here I compare the efforts of 65 novices (second-year biogeography students) and myself in sampling an area of sub-alpine Tasmania. I was interested quantifying the abilities of this group rather than a smaller, more experienced group because a range of interests and abilities were represented. The results are informative as to the feasibility of including bryophytes in monitoring projects where the focus of the project may be on other groups and the field officer has little experience with bryophytes.

Who Is the Practitioner of Political Economy?

ordinary person makes decisions every day that are important to maintaining his health. But those decisions are familiar and routine. For new decisions, important decisions, he would usually appoint a doctor to the task. The practice of serious medicine is the province of the doctor, just as the practice of architectural safety is the province of the engineer, and food safety the province of chemists and pharmacologists. In these fields, the practitioner is a specialized expert. Even when the ordinary individual takes on medical decisions himself, he does so after gaining some pointed knowledge of his particular condition and, in a meaningful sense, becoming a narrow sort of expert. (A Yiddish proverb says: Don't ask the doctor ask the patient. ) Who makes the important decisions in political economy? Unlike the case in medicine, engineering, and other technical fields, the decision-maker is not the trained expert. The practi-

A methodology to facilitate occupational task grouping: Meeting the demands of training analysis and planning

Methods for grouping occupational tasks are required to support a broad range of personnel actions and organizational planning activities. Having subject matter experts sort tasks into groups is the only methodology generally recognized for these purposes. For many applications, however, and training in particular, analyses that cover large areas of an organization may be required. For such uses, manual sorting is costly and may be infeasible. A new method, based on statistical clustering using task coperformance, is described. Results indicate that this method can replicate much of the structure of the experts’ groups and so can be used to facilitate task grouping. Implications of this new approach are discussed.