Task Analysis Process Research Articles

Professional competence of mathematics teachers in dealing with tasks in lesson planning

Teachers' professional competence to select tasks and prepare the task implementation is considered important for instruction that initiates meaningful learning. Teachers' professional knowledge and individual planning processes are discussed as reasons for individual differences in the quality of planning products, such as the selected tasks and preparation of task implementation. In a cross-sectional study, future and active secondary teachers' professional knowledge, their task-related lesson planning processes and planning products for fraction learning were assessed. Professional knowledge is related to the quality of teachers’ planning process, and this quality can be explained by noticing and reasoning during the task analysis process.

An Assessment Tool to Provide Targeted Feedback to Robotic Surgical Trainees: Development and Validation of the End-To-End Assessment of Suturing Expertise (EASE).

To create a suturing skills assessment tool that comprehensively defines criteria around relevant sub-skills of suturing and to confirm its validity. 5 expert surgeons and an educational psychologist participated in a cognitive task analysis (CTA) to deconstruct robotic suturing into an exhaustive list of technical skill domains and sub-skill descriptions. Using the Delphi methodology, each CTA element was systematically reviewed by a multi-institutional panel of 16 surgical educators and implemented in the final product when content validity index (CVI) reached ≥0.80. In the subsequent validation phase, 3 blinded reviewers independently scored 8 training videos and 39 vesicourethral anastomoses (VUA) using EASE; 10 VUA were also scored using Robotic Anastomosis Competency Evaluation (RACE), a previously validated, but simplified suturing assessment tool. Inter-rater reliability was measured with intra-class correlation (ICC) for normally distributed values and prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted Kappa (PABAK) for skewed distributions. Expert (≥100 prior robotic cases) and trainee (<100 cases) EASE scores from the non-training cases were compared using a generalized linear mixed model. After two rounds of Delphi process, panelists agreed on 7 domains, 18 sub-skills, and 57 detailed sub-skill descriptions with CVI ≥ 0.80. Inter-rater reliability was moderately high (ICC median: 0.69, range: 0.51-0.97; PABAK: 0.77, 0.62-0.97). Multiple EASE sub-skill scores were able to distinguish surgeon experience. The Spearman's rho correlation between overall EASE and RACE scores was 0.635 (p=0.003). Through a rigorous CTA and Delphi process, we have developed EASE, whose suturing sub-skills can distinguish surgeon experience while maintaining rater reliability.

External Auditors' Judgment and Decision Making: An Audit Process Task Analysis

AbstractThis manuscript reviews the external auditor judgment and decision making (JDM) literature from the past decade by specific tasks in the auditing process. Decomposing the literature review by audit task was chosen to enable audit and behavioral researchers and graduate students to identify the trends of JDM research subsequent to Nelson and Tan's () literature review. In addition to identifying gaps/omissions in the current literature, suggestions for future research are also advanced based on forthcoming transformations in the auditing institutional environment.

Understanding User Behaviour through Action Sequences: From the Usual to the Unusual.

Action sequences, where atomic user actions are represented in a labelled, timestamped form, are becoming a fundamental data asset in the inspection and monitoring of user behaviour in digital systems. Although the analysis of such sequences is highly critical to the investigation of activities in cyber security applications, existing solutions fail to provide a comprehensive understanding due to the complex semantic and temporal characteristics of these data. This paper presents a visual analytics approach that aims to facilitate a user-involved, multi-faceted decision making process during the identification and the investigation of "unusual" action sequences. We first report the results of the task analysis and domain characterisation process. Then we describe the components of our multi-level analysis approach that comprises of constraint-based sequential pattern mining and semantic distance based clustering, and multi-scalar visualisations of users and their sequences. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our approach through a case study that involves tasks requiring effective decision-making by a group of domain experts. Although our solution here is tightly informed by a user-centred, domain-focused design process, we present findings and techniques that are transferable to other applications where the analysis of such sequences is of interest.

Using a Task Analysis Process for Reading and Writing Assignments

AbstractProficient writers spend substantial time planning for writing, and that planning begins with analyzing the writing task. They spend time considering the topic, the audience and its needs, and the genre and form of the writing. This rhetorical analysis helps them set goals, orient their attention, and get organized. Task analysis can also help students navigate reading tasks and challenging combined reading–writing tasks. This teaching tip explains a process for critically reading and analyzing writing tasks, as well as combined reading–writing tasks, that can be immediately applied in teachers’ classrooms.

The analysis of the process in the cooling tower with the low efficiency

We put quite a difficult task maintaining a temperature drop to 11-12 degrees at thermal power plants to ensure the required depth of cooling of vacuum in the condenser, cooling towers. This requirement is achieved with the reducing of the hydraulic load with the low efficiency of the apparatus. The task analysis process in this unit and identify the causes of his poor performance was put in the work. One of the possible reasons may be the heterogeneity of the process in the volume of the apparatus. Therefore, it was decided to investigate experimentally the distribution of the irrigation water and the air flow in the cross section of industrial cooling towers. As a result, we found a significant uneven distribution of flows of water and air in the volume of the apparatus. We have shown theoretically that the uneven distribution of irrigation leads to a significant decrease in the efficiency of evaporation in the cooling tower. The velocity distribution of the air as the tower sections, and inside sections are interesting. The obtained experimental data allowed to establish the internal communication: the effects of the distributions of the density of irrigation in sections of the apparatus for the distribution of changes of the temperature and the air velocity. The obtained results allowed to formulate a methodology for determining process problems and to develop actions on increase of the efficiency of the cooling tower.

A Task Analysis Methodology for the Development of Minimum Physical Employment Standards.

The aim of this study was to develop a systematic task analysis process for determination of minimum acceptable job performance in arduous safety-related occupations. A task analysis using modifications on established methods was completed in UK firefighters. Subject-matter experts (all male) identified critical, physically arduous tasks generic to all UK firefighters and developed individual, role-specific task simulations. Video footage and blinded voting were used to determine minimum acceptable task performance. Eight tasks were identified in combination with role-specific variations, task simulations suitable for use in a physical demands analysis, and corresponding minimum acceptable performance. The bespoke steps highlighted here allow structured identification of task-specific minimum performance standards and simulations from which physical employment standards could be based. However, including a more divergent expert panel with respect to age, sex, and race would strengthen the applicability of this framework in future practice.

Task Analysis as a Resource for Strengthening Health Systems.

Task analysis is a descriptive study methodology that has wide application in the health professions. Task analysis is particularly useful in assessment and definition of the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that define the scope of practice of a health profession or occupation. Jhpiego, a US-based nongovernmental organization, has adapted traditional task analysis methods in several countries in assessment of workforce education and practice issues. Four case studies are presented to describe the utility and adaptability of the task analysis approach. Traditional task analysis field survey methods were used in assessment of the general and maternal-child health nursing workforce in Mozambique that led to curriculum redesign, reducing the number of education pathways from 4 to 2. The process of health system strengthening in Liberia, following a long history of civil war conflict, included a traditional task analysis study conducted among 119 registered nurses and 46 certified midwives who had graduated in the last 6 months to 2 years to determine gaps in education and preparation. An innovative approach for data collection that involves "playing cards" to document participant opinions (Task Master, Mining for Data) was developed by Jhpiego for application in other countries. Results of a task analysis involving 54 nurses and 100 nurse-midwives conducted in Lesotho were used to verify the newly drafted scope and standards of practice for nurses and to inform planning for a competency-based preservice curriculum for nursing. The Nursing and Midwifery Council developed a 100-question licensing examination for new graduates following a task analysis in Botswana. The task analysis process in each country resulted in recommendations that were action oriented and were implemented by the country governments. For maximal utility and ongoing impact, a task analysis study should be repeated on a periodic basis and more frequently in countries undergoing rapid change in development of workforce policy.

A Proposed Methodology for Task Analysis in Ergonomic Evaluations

The aim of this job is to propose a procedure that helps ergonomists and engineers to develop task analysis and evaluations in workstations. In the ergonomics field, task analysis is a method to describe and analyze the task performance when users interact with complex systems, this is the first step to do an ergonomic evaluation. Most of the areas in ergonomics requires task analysis, literature contains clear descriptions for task analysis for cognitive tasks, and nevertheless there is a lack of information for biomechanics and design evaluations. In here, a procedure is proposed in order to offer tools to correctly conduct ergonomic assessments that help ergonomists to develop this evaluations and indicate the risk level of certain workstation. This research contains a proposed procedure for task analysis and two case studies applying this procedure. The proposed procedure consists in five phases: recognition, video recording, subtasks separation, video analysis, and frame classification. The proposed procedure is applied in two case studies. The first case study is in a workstation of an automobile parts industry. The second case study is in a shoe manufacturing workstation. Subtasks are identified and classified with frequencies in both jobs, indicating what subtasks are more repetitive, and thus need to be assessed. This work provides a procedure that allows to standardize the process of task analysis in biomechanics and design evaluations, this procedure allows to obtain the frequency of the subtasks that are part of the assessed workstation, and thus it is easier to identify which one of these need to be evaluated with ergonomic methods.

Task Conflicts and Exclusive Professionalism in Nursing in South Korea

Task conflicts among medical professions are essential problems to be solved in health care organizations. This study examined job conflicts between practical nurses (PNs) and registered nurses (RNs) in their duties and tasks with representative panelists from South Korea. This qualitative study used the Dacum Task Analysis process. Subject-matter experts in practical nursing were recruited utilizing stratified sampling: Ten experts developed job descriptions of PNs, and 20 validated the descriptions. The on-site tasks and duties of the PNs were measured by means of Dacum, and the results were reviewed by RNs using 3 focus-group interviews. The job description of PNs consisted of 10 duties and 117 tasks, overlapping with some tasks of RNs. Core tasks performed by PNs, such as invasive activities, led to task conflicts between the 2 groups, as these activities were regarded as the inherent duty of nursing professions. Thus, the RNs did not concede the expanded job scope of the PNs in terms of exclusive professionalism. To reduce task conflict, there is a need for the balanced development of nursing professionalism.

Working memory capacity: the need for process task-analysis

Working memory capacity: the need for process task-analysis

An intelligent task analysis approach for special education based on MIRA

This paper describes a novel approach for generating a logical sequence of tasks in the task analysis process of special education. This approach is based on the formalism MIRA (Mīmāṁsā Inspired Representation of Actions), which has the feature of expressing an action as reason, instruction and goal. MIRA also prescribes a set of deduction rules, which helps in the reasoning process of actions. These features are incorporated in this approach and a software tool, namely MIRATaskGen is designed, which facilitates the task analysis process of special education. The software receives various action related inputs along with the start and finish stages and generates a sequence of tasks from the start to the finish. This tool also informs the user, whether the desired goal can be achieved. If the desired goal cannot be achieved, then the sequence of actions from the start to a point of discontinuity is detected.

Psychotherapy change process research: Realizing the promise

Change process research (CPR) is the study of the processes by which change occurs in psychotherapy and is a necessary complement to randomized clinical trials and other forms of efficacy research. In this article the author describes and evaluates four types of CPR. The first three are basic designs and include quantitative process–outcome, qualitative helpful factors, and microanalytic sequential process; the fourth, the significant events approach, refers to methods such as task analysis and comprehensive process analysis that integrate the first three. The strengths and weaknesses of each design are described and summarized using both causal and practical criteria as part of an overall argument for systematic methodological pluralism.

A Task Analysis of the Task Analysis Process

Task analysis is one of the most useful tools for investigating human tasks and together with associated analysis techniques it provides considerable versatility, that enables analysts to investigate a wide range of issues on both new and existing systems. However, software tools for task analysis generally do not currently provide the flexibility or range of applications, to fully utilize this versatility.Therefore, in order to define the user requirements for an analyst using a task analysis package, a task analysis was undertaken of the task analysis process. This produced an extensive set of different user requirements, both at a generic level and at the level of specific analysis techniques. Some of the more significant of these findings are summarized. It was also noted that there is room for some standardization in the way that some features of task analysis data are presented, in order to assist the readers of a task analysis to understand the data presentation of task analysis data.

A Task Analysis of the Task Analysis Process

Task analysis is one of the most useful tools for investigating human tasks and together with associated analysis techniques it provides considerable versatility, that enables analysts to investigate a wide range of issues on both new and existing systems. However, software tools for task analysis generally do not currently provide the flexibility or range of applications, to fully utilize this versatility. Therefore, in order to define the user requirements for an analyst using a task analysis package, a task analysis was undertaken of the task analysis process. This produced an extensive set of different user requirements, both at a generic level and at the level of specific analysis techniques. Some of the more significant of these findings are summarized. It was also noted that there is room for some standardization in the way that some features of task analysis data are presented, in order to assist the readers of a task analysis to understand the data presentation of task analysis data.

Special Section on Seclusion and Restraint: Commentary: Reducing the Use of Seclusion and Restraint: A NASMHPD Priority

Objective: The purpose of this study was to calculate the economic cost of using restraint on one adolescent inpatient service and to examine the effect of an initiative to reduce or eliminate the use of restraint after it was implemented. Methods: A detailed process-task analysis of mechanical, physical, and medication-based restraint was conducted in accordance with state and federal restraint requirements. Facility restraint data were collected, verified, and analyzed. A model was developed to determine the cost and duration of an average episode for each type of restraint. Staff time allocated to restraint activities and medication costs were computed. Calculation of the cost of restraint was restricted to staff and medication costs. Aggregate costs of restraint use and staff-related costs for one full year before the restraint reduction initiative (FY 2000) and one full year after the initiative (FY 2003) were calculated. Outcome, discharge, and recidivism data were analyzed. Results: A comparison of the FY 2000 data with the FY 2003 data showed that the adolescent inpatient service's aggregate use of restraint decreased from 3,991 episodes to 373 episodes (91 percent), which was associated with a reduction in the cost of restraint from $1,446,740 to $117,036 (a 92 percent reduction). In addition, sick time, staff turnover and replacement costs, workers' compensation, injuries to adolescents and staff, and recidivism decreased. Adolescent Global Assessment of Functioning scores at discharge significantly improved. Conclusions: Implementation of a restraint reduction initiative was associated with a reduction in the use of restraint, staff time devoted to restraint, and staff-related costs. This shift appears to have contributed to better outcomes for adolescents, fewer injuries to adolescents and staff, and lower staff turnover. The initiative may have enhanced adolescent treatment and work conditions for staff.

Special Section on Seclusion and Restraint: The Economic Cost of Using Restraint and the Value Added by Restraint Reduction or Elimination

The purpose of this study was to calculate the economic cost of using restraint on one adolescent inpatient service and to examine the effect of an initiative to reduce or eliminate the use of restraint after it was implemented. A detailed process-task analysis of mechanical, physical, and medication-based restraint was conducted in accordance with state and federal restraint requirements. Facility restraint data were collected, verified, and analyzed. A model was developed to determine the cost and duration of an average episode for each type of restraint. Staff time allocated to restraint activities and medication costs were computed. Calculation of the cost of restraint was restricted to staff and medication costs. Aggregate costs of restraint use and staff-related costs for one full year before the restraint reduction initiative (FY 2000) and one full year after the initiative (FY 2003) were calculated. Outcome, discharge, and recidivism data were analyzed. A comparison of the FY 2000 data with the FY 2003 data showed that the adolescent inpatient service's aggregate use of restraint decreased from 3,991 episodes to 373 episodes (91 percent), which was associated with a reduction in the cost of restraint from $1,446,740 to $117,036 (a 92 percent reduction). In addition, sick time, staff turnover and replacement costs, workers' compensation, injuries to adolescents and staff, and recidivism decreased. Adolescent Global Assessment of Functioning scores at discharge significantly improved. Implementation of a restraint reduction initiative was associated with a reduction in the use of restraint, staff time devoted to restraint, and staff-related costs. This shift appears to have contributed to better outcomes for adolescents, fewer injuries to adolescents and staff, and lower staff turnover. The initiative may have enhanced adolescent treatment and work conditions for staff.

Formative research on the Heuristic Task Analysis process

Corporate and educational settings increasingly address more decision-making, problem-solving and other complex cognitive skills to handle complex cognitive, or heuristic, tasks, but the ever-increasing need for heuristic knowledge has outpaced the refinement of task analysis methods for heuristic expertise. Utilizing the Heuristic Task Analysis (HTA) process, a method developed for eliciting, analyzing, and representing expertise in complex cognitive tasks, a formative research study was conducted on the task of group counseling to further improve the HTA process. Implications of the findings include the need for incorporating various interview strategies and techniques, developing strategies for working with multiple experts, and considering the level of task expertise of the analyst. A revised version of the HTA process is presented based on these implications.

Performance and Economic Benefits of Object Oriented Task Analysis with Cognitive Flow Diagrams

While there have been many advances in Human Computer Interaction design, modern user interface (UI) design often remains deficient in its ability to augment human performance. McInerney and Sobiesiak (1999) argue that many user interface deficiencies arise because the UI design process is “ad hoc” and is based on subjective design methods. To build a user interface for a Command and Control (C2) display, an Object Oriented Task Analysis (OOTA) process was used. This process was augmented by incorporating a Cognitive Task Analysis and generating a human Cognitive Flow Diagram (CFD). By applying this structured engineering process built around an OOTA and CFD, C2 displays are being “recreated” in a manner that improves human performance and reduces cost offering a 6 to 1 ratio on return of investment for human factors effort in the program. The process resulted in display designs that outperformed baseline designs 25–70%.

Work design and analysis for space-based manufacturing: a case analysis of initial design issues

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the nature of potential manufacturing tasks humans may execute in a space environment. The success of space-based manufacturing (SBM) is suggested to be a precursor to permanent human presence in space. A working hypothesis for this study was that human work in the SBM environment would be substantially different from terrestrial manufacturing work. To investigate this hypothesis, a case analysis approach was developed that employed a function allocation and task analysis of a representative SBM process: the production of tailored industrial crystals. This research approach was chosen as the current state of engineering design for SBM is in the conceptual and early flow sheeting phases of a system life cycle. Results of the task analysis and function allocation process suggest response to corrective maintenance functions and to abnormal system conditions should be allocated to humans as opposed to automation. These results are discussed in relation to human factors engineering challenges associated with long-duration human presence in an SBM environment.