Human Performance Technology Practitioners Research Articles

The State of Engineering Worthy Performance and the 10 Standards: Part 2

Part one of this three-part series suggested that the human performance technology (HPT) profession has strayed from its charter as established by Gilbert, a recognized founder of HPT. This second article offers a solution for the eclectic jumble of ideas that can confuse the work of HPT practitioners as they apply the 10 standards. This new lens comes from the field of innovation that brings greater HPT clarity and meets Gilbert's three-edged ruler principles discussed in part one.

Research and Theory as Necessary Tools for Organizational Training and Performance Improvement Practitioners

Human Performance Technology (HPT) is the applied study and practice of improving organizational performance through training and non-training interventions. For practitioners working in this area that identify themselves as an HPT practitioner, organizational training and performance (OTP) specialist, or instructional designer—offering the right intervention set requires understanding of how humans work and function internally and within organizations that are bounded by environmental, societal, and economic realities. The HPT field is rooted in a multi-disciplinary knowledge base and has its own models and theories, which are generally developed by practitioners to guide their practice. Because HPT follows a systematic, data-driven process akin to action research, HPT practitioners are applied researchers even if they do not see themselves as such. What we need is more collaboration between scholars, practitioners, professional associations, and businesses to create a culture of engagement and involve everybody in the validation of applied research and theory development.

Knowledge of the Human Performance Technology Practitioner Relative to ISPI Human Performance Technology Standards and the Degree of Standard Acceptance by the Field

Despite the availability of the human performance technology (HPT) competency standards, the degree to which practitioners within HPT practice the standards has not been the subject of significant empirical research. The present study examines whether the International Society for Performance Improvement HPT standards accurately describe the threshold of competency within HPT and the degree to which practitioners apply and utilize the competency standards.

Making a Professional Contribution

Making a Professional Contribution

WHAT IS INTERIORITY AND WHY MIGHT IT BE IMPORTANT FOR HUMAN PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY?

Considerations of the inner world of workers and organizations might not fall within the provenance of human performance technology (HPT) practitioners. However, when it comes to being creative, workers need fertile imaginations driven from within. When it comes to productivity, mostly inner energies drive collaboration. When it comes to results, leaders must nurture workers toward wholeness for effective decisions and wisdom-driven action. For these reasons, HPT practitioners need to know how to engage with the interiority factor.

The Development of Practical Wisdom: Its Critical Role in Sustainable Performance

We occasionally make complex decisions. Sometimes we later judge that we acted unwisely. Sometimes we judge that we acted with wisdom. Organizational leaders have similar experiences. When they decide unwisely, their organizations suffer, and so can society. Are there ways to learn how to act with greater wisdom? Neuroscientists tentatively say “yes.” Here we will explore what wisdom is, what relevant brain science offers, and what you—as a human performance technology practitioner—might do to help yourself and others gain wisdom.

Synthesizing soft systems methodology and human performance technology

Human performance technology (HPT), like other concepts, models, and frameworks that we use to describe the world in which we live and the way we organize ourselves to accomplish valuable activities, is built from paradigms that were fresh and relevant at the time it was conceived and from the fields of study from which it grew. However, when the frameworks used by practitioners grow out of similar paradigms, important things can be missed when designing solutions in performance environments simply because of their practical limitations and exclusion of issues that may warrant our attention. This article looks at the paradigms most commonly used to explain performance environments, both within HPT and by those from other fields. From this a synthesized approach to solving perceived problems in performance environments is provided that introduces Soft Systems Methodology to the HPT practitioner, an approach built on premises very different from those commonly utilized in HPT frameworks.

The future of HPT depends on whether practitioners focus on foundations or fads

The future of human performance technology (HPT) will be bright or dismal depending on how well HPT practitioners focus on careful and practical answers to three pivotal questions: What is good practice in human performance technology? What are the differences between good practice and bad? What are the connections between good research and exemplary practice? The answers to all three questions involve two fundamental units of analysis: the three-term contingency and the Total Performance System. Examples in this article show what a unit of analysis is, why the two units are important, and how both should guide analysis, design, and implementation efforts. The future of HPT will be bright only if these units of analysis are used more often and more explicitly.

Application of data collection techniques by human performance technology practitioners

By content-analyzing 22 published cases from a variety of professional and academic books and journals, this study examines the status quo of human performance technology (HPT) practitioners' application of five major data collection techniques in their everyday work: questionnaire, interview, focus group, observation, and document collection. The result shows that Analysis and Evaluation phases have the most frequent application of data collection techniques by HPT practitioners. It also shows that during application, HPT practitioners usually apply more than one technique to collect data, and they collect data from more than one source. Information in the cases is limited regarding the rigor of using the various data collection techniques. Limitations of the study are discussed and future study has been suggested.

Human performance modeling: A case study

Modeling critical performance elements can assist the human performance technology practitioner in better understanding the often complex, messy, and fuzzy real world of human performance. As illustrated in the embedded case study, generically developed models that, in turn, can be adapted to context-specific applications often have the greatest practical value. The key in developing any good model is to first identify those key variables—the critical few—that truly account for the greatest variance in performance.

Hey, HPT practitioner! Talk to me

It is important to clearly articulate what the essence of human performance technology (HPT) is about. Too often we are caught in our own jargon and confuse our clients and jeopardize appropriate outcomes. A group of graduate students in an introductory HPT class responded to an assignment to explain to other professionals what human performance practitioners do. Their thoughts, written in their own voices, are reflected here.

Rational, natural, and open: Organizational system typologies and their relevance for performance improvement professionals

The work of human performance technology (HPT) is always conducted in an organization of some type. However, many of the frameworks and models of this field do not differentiate between types of organizations. The discipline of organizational sociology has produced a typology of organizations that can be of substantive use to the HPT practitioner. This article provides a brief description of these types and links to HPT, with the goal of providing new “tools to think with” for the HPT practitioner.

How should organizational leaders use employee engagement survey data?

This evaluation study explores how a nonprofit health insurance provider responds to the results of its annual employee engagement survey. The study answers two questions: (a) What do organizational leaders do with the data collected? and (b) How do leaders perceive the usefulness of the survey? It provides study results, discussions, and recommendations relevant to human performance technology practitioners, to help maximize the value of an organizational survey by increasing its usefulness as a catalyst for change.

Performance-based measurement: Action for organizations and HPT accountability

Basic measurements and applications of six selected general but critical operational performance-based indicators—effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, profitability, return on investment, and benefit-cost ratio—are presented. With each measurement, goals and potential impact are explored. Errors, risks, limitations to measurements, and a final check for validity, applicability, accountability, and usability of these measurements are discussed. This article provides a simple, practical guide to performance measurement for organizations and human performance technology practitioners' accountability and continuous improvement.

Relationship between Human Performance Technology Practitioners' Roles and Maturity of Strategic Human Performance Technology

Relationship between Human Performance Technology Practitioners' Roles and Maturity of Strategic Human Performance Technology

The backyard human performance technologist: Applying the development research methodology to develop and validate a new instructional design framework

Development research methodology (DRM) has been recommended as a viable research approach to expand the practice-to-theory/theory-to-practice literature that human performance technology (HPT) practitioners can integrate into the day-to-day work flow they already use to develop instructional products. However, little has been written about how it can be applied in a workplace setting to allow HPT practitioners to consider this research approach for adoption into their own activities. This article provides a real-world application of the DRM to help close this literature gap. After providing background information to establish the case context, the article presents an overview of how this research approach was applied to an effort to develop and validate a new instructional design framework for potentially training National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts for deep space exploration missions. The result of this case indicates that this research methodology provides a viable approach that HPT practitioners can integrate into their current practices to provide a practice-based research baseline to contribute to the practice-to-theory/theory-to-practice literature.

Applying Case-based Reasoning in Knowledge Management to Support Organizational Performance

Research and practice in human performance technology (HPT) has recently accelerated the search for innovative approaches to supplement or replace traditional training interventions for improving organizational performance. This article examines a knowledge management framework built upon the theories and techniques of case-based reasoning (CBR) and Nonaka's (1991, 1994) knowledge conversion model to shed light on how organizational performance can be enhanced by leveraging organizational knowledge represented as cases to support learning, working, and innovation of knowledge workers. This framework offers HPT practitioners new ways of thinking and methods for the design of performance support interventions by which organizational knowledge is stored, codified, delivered, and acted upon in context, on demand, and at the point of need. This paper describes a project, Knowledge Innovation for Technology in Education (KITE), which was designed to support professional development of teachers using CBR and knowledge conversion theories.

Potential knowledge management contributions to human performance technology research and practice

This article considers three aspects of the knowledge management (KM) literature that have the potential to enhance human performance technology (HPT) research and practice. First, we believe the recent attempt by economists to describe and quantify intellectual capital can help HPT to better evaluate and defend organizational expenditures/investments for performance improvement initiatives. Second, the emerging KM literature explores the linkages between information, learning and performance, provides a common point of intersection for our fields, and can enhance our analysis and implementation of information (as opposed to training) solutions as well as inform and expand our conceptual and theoretical understanding. Third, we have observed that both KM and HPT practitioners are increasingly concerned with the learning that takes place outside the confines of traditional formal training environments. We briefly review the electronic performance support systems literature from HPT and KM, noting the similarities in epistemology, design, and interventions. Finally, we highlight the KM research agenda and suggest related opportunities for HPT research.