Successful Task Performance Research Articles

An Approach for Integrated Analysis of Human Factors in Remote Handling Maintenance

Considering dangerous environmental conditions, maintenance of radioactive equipment can be performed by remote handling maintenance (RHM) system. The RHM system is a sophisticated man-machine system. Therefore, human factors analysis is an inevitable aspect considered in guaranteeing successful and safe task performance. This study proposes an approach for integrated analysis of human factors in RHM so as to make the evaluating process more practical. In the approach, indicators of accessibility, health safety, and fatigue are analyzed using virtual human simulation technologies. The human error factors in the maintenance process are analyzed using the human error probability (HEP) based on the success likelihood index method- (SLIM-) analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The psychological factors level of maintenance personnel is determined with an expert scoring. The human factors for the entire RHM system are then evaluated using the interval method. An application example is present, and the application results show that the approach can support the evaluation of the human factors in RHM.

Implicit sequence learning in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta).

Implicit learning involves picking up information from the environment without explicit instruction or conscious awareness of the learning process. In nonhuman animals, conscious awareness is impossible to assess, so we define implicit learning as occurring when animals acquire information beyond what is required for successful task performance. While implicit learning has been documented in some nonhuman species, it has not been explored in prosimian primates. Here we ask whether ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) learn sequential information implicitly. We tested lemurs in a modified version of the serial reaction time task on a touch screen computer. Lemurs were required to respond to any picture within a 2 × 2 grid of pictures immediately after its surrounding border flickered. Over 20 training sessions, both the locations and the identities of the images remained constant and response times gradually decreased. Subsequently, the locations and/or the identities of the images were disrupted. Response times indicated that the lemurs had learned the physical location sequence required in original training but did not learn the identity of the images. Our results reveal that ring-tailed lemurs can implicitly learn spatial sequences, and raise questions about which scenarios and evolutionary pressures give rise to perceptual versus motor-implicit sequence learning.

Understanding Symbol Coding in Schizophrenia

At first glance, the article by Knowles et al. (1) could easily be dismissed as an obsessive treatise focusing on the semantics employed by psychologists and those who decline to ignore them. It is not. It is a thorough investigation of the component elements of mental functioning that determine performance on the most sensitive test for the detection of schizophreniarelated cognitive impairment available today. Additional context about symbol coding tests may be informative. To the surprise of many, the sophisticated and complex electrophysiologic, neuroimaging, genetic, and cognitive neuroscience measures that we apply to the problem of differentiating people with schizophrenia from healthy people all are less sensitive than a simple test that has been available in various forms for several decades (2). This finding has been discouraging to investigators who have spent years developing intricate methodologies for assessing specific components of perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that may explain the core impairments in schizophrenia. These newer methodologies certainly evaluate more specific cognitive and perceptual processes. However, the coding tests are more strongly correlated than any other measure with the things that are really meaningful to patients and their families: whether patients can work, maintain relationships with loved ones, and live independently (3). Neuropsychological tests were developed partially for this purpose—to measure the mental strengths and weaknesses of an individual in a standardized manner that would allow clinicians to understand how they are likely to fare in everyday life (4). Symbol coding tests, in various forms, involve matching numerical digits 1–9 with nine different symbols (Figure 1). Hundreds of articles have described various categorizations of symbol coding tests, including executive functions, working memory, incidental learning, perception, attention shifting, cognitive control, and visual search. Perhaps most often, these tests have been described as measures of processing speed, especially in schizophrenia. The Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Neurocognition Subcommittee chose to place a symbol coding task within the processing speed domain, partly owing to tradition, but mostly owing to the fact that in factor analyses involving patients with schizophrenia, these tests load with other graphomotor speed tests more strongly than they do with tests in other domains (5). Although the prime element of performance of the test is speed, it is a more complex test than pure speed measures such as reaction time and finger tapping. Knowles et al. state in their article that in healthy people, “successful coding task performance is predominantly reliant on executive function, rather than processing-speed or memory abilities” (1). Is this semantics? Partly. Forcing tests into categories loses information and leads to misunderstandings.

Load-related brain activation predicts spatial working memory performance in youth aged 9–12 and is associated with executive function at earlier ages

Spatial working memory is a central cognitive process that matures through adolescence in conjunction with major changes in brain function and anatomy. Here we focused on late childhood and early adolescence to more closely examine the neural correlates of performance variability during this important transition period. Using a modified spatial 1-back task with two memory load conditions in an fMRI study, we examined the relationship between load-dependent neural responses and task performance in a sample of 39 youth aged 9–12 years. Our data revealed that between-subject differences in task performance was predicted by load-dependent deactivation in default network regions, including the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Although load-dependent increases in activation in prefrontal and posterior parietal regions were only weakly correlated with performance, increased prefrontal–parietal coupling was associated with better performance. Furthermore, behavioral measures of executive function from as early as age 3 predicted current load-dependent deactivation in vACC and PCC. These findings suggest that both task positive and task negative brain activation during spatial working memory contributed to successful task performance in late childhood/early adolescence. This may serve as a good model for studying executive control deficits in developmental disorders.

Proxy-based position control of manipulators with passive compliant actuators: Stability analysis and experiments

In this work we introduce a position control scheme which is targeted at the enhancement of the safety of compliant joint robots. In addition to the necessity for accuracy and robustness that both serve as prerequisites for the successful performance of various tasks, the ability to safely handle unexpected events, such as communication failures or unintended interactions which may endanger the robot/human safety, is a paramount requirement. To achieve a smooth motion behaviour of compliant systems under different circumstances, damping control actions are essential. To this end, a novel proxy-based approach for compliant joint robots, integrated into a passivity-guaranteed controller, is proposed. The stability analysis of the proposed scheme is presented and the global asymptotic convergence, as well as the passivity of the control scheme, are analytically proven. The performance of the proposed approach is practically evaluated by means of experiments on a spatial robotic arm with passive compliant actuators, and is compared with that of a classical PD approach. Experimental results validate the ability of the proposed approach to inject damping in order to provide smooth and damped recovery when an interruption in task execution occurs.

Characteristics Impacting Teamwork and Performance for Space Operations

Efficient teamwork and communication between and within teams in space flight is essential to successful task performance and avoidance of disastrous errors. Additionally, when crews go on missions beyond Low Earth Orbit, communication between remote team members becomes asynchronous due to transmission delays, which makes it even more difficult to communicate and collaborate effectively. Exploring the individual and group factors that affect how teams work together is essential to predict successful performance on missions. As part of a larger study, we investigated whether conflict management style and leadership style were significantly related to group performance, group cohesion and efficacy in a remote team collaborative task. Shared leadership style as well as accommodating and competing conflict handling modes were significantly related to performance and ratings of cohesion and efficacy. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Lessons learnt? The importance of metacognition and its implications for Cognitive Remediation in schizophrenia.

The cognitive problems experienced by people with schizophrenia not only impede recovery but also interfere with treatments designed to improve overall functioning. Hence there has been a proliferation of new therapies to treat cognitive problems with the hope that improvements will benefit future intervention and recovery outcomes. Cognitive remediation therapy (CR) that relies on intensive task practice can support basic cognitive functioning but there is little evidence on how these therapies lead to transfer to real life skills. However, there is increasing evidence that CR including elements of transfer training (e.g., strategy use and problem solving schemas) produce higher functional outcomes. It is hypothesized that these therapies achieve higher transfer by improving metacognition. People with schizophrenia have metacognitive problems; these include poor self-awareness and difficulties in planning for complex tasks. This paper reviews this evidence as well as research on why metacognition needs to be explicitly taught as part of cognitive treatments. The evidence is based on research on learning spanning from neuroscience to the field of education. Learning programmes, and CRT, may be able to achieve better outcomes if they explicitly teach metacognition including metacognitive knowledge (i.e., awareness of the cognitive requirements and approaches to tasks) and metacognitive regulation (i.e., cognitive control over the different task relevant cognitive requirements). These types of metacognition are essential for successful task performance, in particular, for controlling effort, accuracy and efficient strategy use. We consider metacognition vital for the transfer of therapeutic gains to everyday life tasks making it a therapy target that may yield greater gains compared to cognition alone for recovery interventions.

Is a Responsive Default Mode Network Required for Successful Working Memory Task Performance?

We studied the relationship between responsiveness of the brain to increasing task demand and successful cognitive performance, using chronic pain patients as a probe. fMRI working memory studies show that two main cognitive networks ["external-task positive" and "default-mode network" (DMN)] are responsive to increasing task difficulty. The responsiveness of both of these brain networks is suggested to be required for successful task performance. The responsiveness of external-task-positive regions has been linked directly to successful cognitive task performance, as we also show here. However, pain patients show decreased engagement and responsiveness of the DMN but can perform a working memory task as well as healthy subjects, without demonstrable compensatory neural recruitment. Therefore, a responsive DMN might not be needed for successful cognitive performance.

Predictive models to determine imagery strategies employed by children to judge hand laterality.

A commonly used paradigm to study motor imagery is the hand laterality judgment task. The present study aimed to determine which strategies young children employ to successfully perform this task. Children of 5 to 8 years old (N = 92) judged laterality of back and palm view hand pictures in different rotation angles. Response accuracy and response duration were registered. Response durations of the trials with a correct judgment were fitted to a-priori defined predictive sinusoid models, representing different strategies to successfully perform the hand laterality judgment task. The first model predicted systematic changes in response duration as a function of rotation angle of the displayed hand. The second model predicted that response durations are affected by biomechanical constraints of hand rotation. If observed data could be best described by the first model, this would argue for a mental imagery strategy that does not involve motor processes to solve the task. The second model reflects a motor imagery strategy to solve the task. In line with previous research, we showed an age-related increase in response accuracy and decrease in response duration in children. Observed data for both back and palm view showed that motor imagery strategies were used to perform hand laterality judgments, but that not all the children use these strategies (appropriately) at all times. A direct comparison of response duration patterns across age sheds new light on age-related differences in the strategies employed to solve the task. Importantly, the employment of the motor imagery strategy for successful task performance did not change with age.

Neuroanatomical substrates for the volitional regulation of heart rate.

The control of physiological arousal can assist in the regulation of emotional state. A subset cortical and subcortical brain regions are implicated in autonomic control of bodily arousal during emotional behaviors. Here, we combined human functional neuroimaging with autonomic monitoring to identify neural mechanisms that support the volitional regulation of heart rate, a process that may be assisted by visual feedback. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 15 healthy adults performed an experimental task in which they were prompted voluntarily to increase or decrease cardiovascular arousal (heart rate) during true, false, or absent visual feedback. Participants achieved appropriate changes in heart rate, without significant modulation of respiratory rate, and were overall not influenced by the presence of visual feedback. Increased activity in right amygdala, striatum and brainstem occurred when participants attempted to increase heart rate. In contrast, activation of ventrolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices occurred when attempting to decrease heart rate. Biofeedback enhanced activity within occipito-temporal cortices, but there was no significant interaction with task conditions. Activity in regions including pregenual anterior cingulate and ventral striatum reflected the magnitude of successful task performance, which was negatively related to subclinical anxiety symptoms. Measured changes in respiration correlated with posterior insula activation and heart rate, at a more lenient threshold, change correlated with insula, caudate, and midbrain activity. Our findings highlight a set of brain regions, notably ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, supporting volitional control of cardiovascular arousal. These data are relevant to understanding neural substrates supporting interaction between intentional and interoceptive states related to anxiety, with implications for biofeedback interventions, e.g., real-time fMRI, that target emotional regulation.

Asymmetric transfer effects between cognitive and affective task disturbances

Task-irrelevant features of a stimulus can disturb performance on a given task, and this can occur for cognitive reasons such as irrelevant stimulus position, and affective reasons such as high stimulus valence. The human brain adapts to such disturbances in order to ensure successful task performance. Adaptations can occur in a transient manner in response to recent events, and they can also be sustained to account for overall probabilities of disturbances. Here, we study the mutual interplay between affective and cognitive task disturbances under conditions of sustained conflict adaptation. More precisely, we examined the trajectory of finger movements in a speeded classification task and investigated whether adaptation to a high probability of spatial disturbances transfers to the impact of affective disturbances (Experiment 1) and whether adaptation to a high probability of affective disturbances transfers to the impact of spatial disturbances (Experiment 2). Our observations point towards an asymmetric transfer from adaptation to affective onto the processing of cognitive disturbances, but not the other way around.

Learning to Integrate versus Inhibiting Information Is Modulated by Age

Cognitive training aiming at improving learning is often successful, but what exactly underlies the observed improvements and how these differ across the age spectrum are currently unknown. Here we asked whether learning in young and older people may reflect enhanced ability to integrate information required to perform a cognitive task or whether it may instead reflect the ability to inhibit task-irrelevant information for successful task performance. We trained 30 young and 30 aging human participants on a numerosity discrimination task known to engage the parietal cortex and in which cue-integration and inhibitory abilities can be distinguished. We coupled training with parietal, motor, or sham transcranial random noise stimulation, known for modulating neural activity. Numerosity discrimination improved after training and was maintained long term, especially in the training + parietal stimulation group, regardless of age. Despite the quantitatively similar improvement in the two age groups, the content of learning differed remarkably: aging participants improved more in inhibitory abilities, whereas younger subjects improved in cue-integration abilities. Moreover, differences in the content of learning were reflected in different transfer effects to untrained but related abilities: in the younger group, improvements in cue integration paralleled improvements in continuous quantity (time and space), whereas in the elderly group, improvements in numerosity-based inhibitory abilities generalized to other measures of inhibition and corresponded to a decline in space discrimination, possibly because conflicting learning resources are used in numerosity and continuous quantity processing. These results indicate that training can enhance different, age-dependent cognitive processes and highlight the importance of identifying the exact processes underlying learning for effective training programs.

Students’ Perception of HR Competencies

Abstract Background and purpose: Human resource professionalism receives considerable attention in terms of the competence of individual. In this article, we want to bridge the existing competencies of students and the perceived competencies that they assume will be developed and obtained during their studies. The purpose of our paper is a) to present competencies in general, b) to determine the meaning of the development of competencies in the field of higher education, and c) to present the role of competencies in human resource management. The aim of this paper is to examine the human resource competencies among students, and their judgments regarding the competencies they have already received during their studies. Methodology: The questionnaire was distributed to full-time students of the Faculty of Organizational Science, University of Maribor, in such a way that both genders, both undergraduate and graduate studies, and all years of study were represented. We have measured students’ opinions concerning their current and future perceptions about professional competencies in the HR field. Results: Based on the self-assessment of fifteen HR competencies, we used hierarchical clustering performed with Ward's method and standardized variables and got two clusters. A t-test was used according to low or high levels of students’ current competencies. The positive association between satisfaction with study programme and student's opinion on development of competencies during their studies was confirmed with one-tailed Pearson correlation coefficient. Conclusion: The majority of students believe that they possess significant HR competencies. They have expressed a need for further education and training in that field. The students have assessed that the study programme allows them to acquire and develop the competencies for a successful task performance of the HR professional.

An Acknowledgement Ode

I recently found my 20-year-old “procedure log-book” from residency—a passbook in which residents document successful performance of invasive tasks. Its white, beaten-soft cardboard cover barely held a thick chunk of canary-colored carbons, carrying impressions of submitted originals, documenting procedures I was attempting to master. Each yellow echo represented equally a critical training step and a patient giving him or herself to me for first attempts at procedures that were at best uncomfortable, at worst dangerous, if my inexperience resulted in disaster. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, allowing for distance and perspective. As I flipped through the pages of procedure after procedure, I was struck by the frequency that one patient's name reoccurred again and again. Although I likely missed the opportunity to tell him personally, I wanted to formally acknowledge one of my greatest teachers: Dear XX, I wanted to thank you for teaching me critical skills and lessons that shaped the doctor I am today. Your frequent ED visits forced me to evolve from sitting in classrooms staring at books to standing bedside of a three-dimensional patient, with problems no longer sterile or easily classified. My procedure book is filled with your name. Flipping through its pages, I had an olfactory memory of ethchlorvynol, the scent of a new shower curtain liner that emanated from your skin. I always knew when you had come through the department, even if I wasn't your doctor that day. You were my first “Type” of patient: my first “addict,” my first “overdose,” my first “difficult” patient. You were my first AMA discussion—do you remember whiffing a haymaker past my head during a tirade and screaming at me “I am a person! You have no right to hold me!”—a pointed lesson. Thank you for training me how to use the tubes of my new trade. You were my first, second, and third intubations; my first Foley catheter; my first nasogastric tube; and my first orogastric tube placement. Thank you for enduring my countless inexperienced attempts to place IVs in your hands, arms, and feet and, when impossible, allowing me to place femoral, jugular, and subclavian central lines. When I rotated on the trauma service, the car that struck you serendipitously realigned our paths and the lessons continued. Thank you for collaborating with my first trauma chest tube placed quickly between your ribs while the trauma senior loomed and allowing me to experience the beautifully choreographed emergency laparotomy to remove your shattered spleen, an image seared into my memory. Thank you for letting me care for your aspiration pneumonia when I was on the medical service and for talking with me after my scut work was done. You were one of the first patients I had the time to really meet and begin to understand as a person: how you came to live as you did, how you survived, what your goals were. Thank you for teaching me that stepping out of a comfort zone can improve a bad situation, a lesson I've taken to heart. Remember threatening that you wouldn't leave the hospital when informed of your discharge? While the team talked of hospital police and forceful expulsion, you called me into your room and explained that your long hair upset you—”I'm not a hippie!” You refused to wait for the hospital's barber, demanding I do my best with trauma shears. When it was done you happily got dressed and left. While others may not remember you fondly, for me your visits showed that even the most difficult patients, when encountered at a different moment, could become favorites. When your blue eyes were clear, I enjoyed listening to your practical, grounded, and realistic insights about the world. I am grateful for both the procedural and the human lessons you have given me. Your student, Jason Hack

Trait susceptibility to worry modulates the effects of cognitive load on cognitive control: An ERP study.

According to the predictions of attentional control theory (ACT) of anxiety (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), worry is a central feature of anxiety that interferes with the ability to inhibit distracting information necessary for successful task performance. However, it is unclear how such cognitive control deficits are modulated by task demands and by the emotionality of the distractors. A sample of 31 participants (25 female) completed a novel flanker task with emotional and neutral distractors under low- and high-cognitive-load conditions. The negative-going N2 event-related potential was measured to index participants' level of top-down resource allocation in the inhibition of distractors under high- and low-load conditions. Results showed N2 amplitudes were larger under high- compared with low-load conditions. In addition, under high but not low load, trait worry was associated with greater N2 amplitudes. Our findings support ACT predictions that trait worry adversely affects goal-directed behavior, and is associated with greater recruitment of cognitive resources to inhibit the impact of distracting information under conditions in which cognitive resources are taxed.

Instrumental Component of Future Technical Specialists’ Professional Identity.

The paper studies the content and inner structure of the instrumental component of professional identity of future technical specialists. Different models of the structure of professional identity of future specialists, teachers and medical psychologists are analysed. Ternary structure of the professional identity of a future technical specialist is proposed. Each component of the professional identity is viewed in terms of fourth-year students of mathematics. The list of knowledge (special or orienting and nonspecific or culturological), skills and abilities, which a higher technical school graduate should possess for the successful performance of professional tasks, is provided. The role of professional competencies in the context of the professional identity is determined. On the basis of theoretical analysis, the structure of professional competencies in terms of bachelors of mathematics is considered. Examples of instrumental and system, personal-social (personal, communicative and information) and special competencies, which are a part of professional competencies, are proposed. The role of formation of professional identity in the process of studying at a higher technical school is considered. The problems of professionalism of activity and competitiveness of a higher technical school graduate in the labour market are considered.

Dissociable patterns in the control of emotional interference in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and in adults with alcohol dependence.

ObjectivesTo effectively manage current task demands, attention must be focused on task-relevant information while task-irrelevant information is rejected. However, in everyday life, people must cope with emotions, which may interfere with actual task demands and may challenge functional attention allocation. Control of interfering emotions has been associated with the proper functioning of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). As DLPFC dysfunction is evident in subjects with ADHD and in subjects with alcohol dependence, the current study sought to examine the bottom-up effect of emotional distraction on task performance in both disorders.MethodsMale adults with ADHD (n = 22), male adults with alcohol dependence (n = 16), and healthy controls (n = 30) performed an emotional working memory task (n-back task). In the background of the task, we presented neutral and negative stimuli that varied in emotional saliency.ResultsIn both clinical groups, a working memory deficit was evident. Moreover, both clinical groups displayed deficient emotional interference control. The n-back performance of the controls was not affected by the emotional distractors, whereas that of subjects with ADHD deteriorated in the presence of low salient distractors, and that of alcoholics did not deteriorate until high salient distractors were presented. Subsequent to task performance, subjects with ADHD accurately recognized more distractors than did alcoholics and controls. In alcoholics, picture recognition accuracy was negatively associated with n-back performance, suggesting a functional association between the ability to suppress emotional distractors and successful task performance. In subjects with ADHD, performance accuracy was negatively associated with ADHD inattentive symptoms, suggesting that inattention contributes to the performance deficit.ConclusionsSubjects with ADHD and alcoholics both display an emotional interference control deficit, which is especially pronounced in subjects with ADHD. Beyond dysfunctional attention allocation processes, a more general attention deficit seems to contribute to the more pronounced performance deficit pattern in ADHD.

Age-Related Effects on ERP and Oscillatory EEG-Dynamics in a 2-Back Task

It is well known that working memory is one of the most vulnerable cognitive functions in elderly. However, little is known about the neuronal underpinnings and temporal dynamics of working memory mechanisms in healthy aging which are necessary to understand the age-related changes. To this end, 36 young and 36 old healthy individuals performed a 2-back task and a 0-back control task, while the electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Participants were instructed to press a response key whenever a target appeared and not to respond in case of nontargets. Expectedly, older participants showed considerably slower RTs and significantly higher rates of omitted targets and false alarms than young participants in the 2-back task, whereas no age-group difference in detection rate was found in the 0-back task. From the EEG event-related potentials as well as time-frequency plots were computed. The ERPs showed a general delay of the frontocentral N2, and an attenuation and delay of both the P3a and P3b in older versus younger adults. Importantly, the frontal P3a was reduced in older adults in the 2-back task. Time-frequency decomposition revealed consistently lower power in frontal theta (6 Hz) and parietal alpha (9–11 Hz) frequency range in older versus younger adults whereas no age-related differences were found in the delta frequency range. Task unspecific reduction of posterior alpha in elderly was paralleled by a reduction of the P3b. In contrast, the older adults had a strongly reduced frontal theta power in the 2-back task, which parallels the P3a reduction in the ERPs. The widespread reduction of alpha may indicate that older adults needed to recruit more attentional resources for successful task performance, whereas reduced frontal theta may indicate that older adults are less able to recruit frontal resources related to top-down control with increasing task demands. This suggests a less efficient fronto-parietal network synchronicity in older individuals that leads to deficits in identification and maintenance of task relevant stimuli.

Disruption reduces accuracy and P3b amplitudes in the attentional blink

In everyday life, distracting stimuli often interfere with daily tasks, and disrupt successful task performance. The attentional blink paradigm (a deficit in reporting the second target (T2) in a rapid stream of visual stimuli) allows for an investigation of disruption by rapidly appearing stimuli. Specifically, the magnitude of the attentional blink deficit can be manipulated by positioning relevant stimuli at strategic locations within the visual stream. The current study therefore designed and tested a disruption paradigm that aimed to reduce T2 accuracy using a disruptor stimulus. Electroencephalography was used to reveal the neural correlates of the effect. To that end, targets were defined by task-set colours. The item immediately preceding T2 appeared in a task-set colour (disrupted trials) or a different colour (non-disrupted trials). The results revealed that T2 accuracy was reduced on disrupted trials, and disruption appeared to be worse when T2 appeared inside the attentional blink window. The behavioural data were paralleled by the neural results. On trials where T2 appeared within the AB window and was correctly reported, T2-P3b amplitude (a neural correlate of working memory consolidation) was significantly depressed on disrupted trials compared with non-disrupted trials. Single trial plots of P3b amplitude confirmed a weaker neural trace for T2 on disrupted trials. These data indicate that the magnitude and neural signature of the attentional blink deficit is malleable, and can be influenced by non-target, task-relevant stimuli.

Jaunų žmonių poreikių Lietuvos darbo rinkoje analizė

Nowadays it is not disputed that the success of organizations significantly depends on their human resource competencies and motivation to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, it is not yet considered how to ensure employee motivation in organizations: it depends on job satisfaction or satisfaction of needs? Management literature in this area suggests that the exploration of human needs could contribute to solving of problems associated with people, and especially with young people, expectations in the labour market and their motivation to work. Thus, such studies may be useful in trying to understand and prevent the emigration of the youth and brain drain – these problems are among the most important in Lithuanian labour market. However, there still exists a theoretical, as well as, practical problem, in discussion which of the needs have the biggest influence on the young people’s decisions in the labour market, what they expect in organizations. Therefore, the object of the research, presented in this article, is expectations of young people, potential labour market participants, in Lithuania. The aim of the research is to identify the needs and factors that influence young people, the potential labour market participants, in Lithuania. To achieve this aim the following objectives have been formulated: 1) to justify the main theoretical provisions and research methodology; 2) to identify expectations of young people in Lithuanian labour market through their needs and factors that have influence on them; 3) to rank these needs in order of importance, according to sex, education and work experience features. The research is based on the fundamental provisions of A. Maslow theory, because it suggests the most valuable information on the human needs groups and gives ideas how to determine their significance. In order to get more information about the factors, having influence on the individual human needs at work in the organization, basically the factors of F. Herzberg theory were used. The link between A. Maslow’s needs groups and motivators as well as the hygiene factors set by F. Herzberg were determined according to P. Keogh (2013). The authors developed for the survey a questionnaire with 22 statements. Due to the goal of the research the statements were formulated using the statement: “it would be important for me“. To assess these statements there has been used the Likert 5 point response scale with separated neutral evaluation. For the sample of the research there was formed a scale of the respondents at the age of 22-25 years, taking into account the specificity of Lithuania. The representativeness of the survey sample – 266 respondents – was calculated according to the online calculator (see: http://www.apklausos.lt/imties- dydis). The authors aiming to collect the data conducted a web-based anonymous survey in the period from March 2013 to April 2013. The request to complete a web-based questionnaire was distributed via intranets and social networks stressing the anonymity of the respondents. 298 respondents were surveyed. The data of the survey was processed applying MS Excel for Windows software package. The survey of young people expectations in Lithuanian labour market leads to provisions that they would wish to meet all the needs of A. Maslow theory, and approximately all groups of the needs are of the same importance for young people. The analysis of separate factors, which have influence on the different need groups, showed that young people expect to meet their needs in various ways and all of them are quite important. Salary appeared to be the key factor in meeting their needs throughout all employee groups. In the second place of the importance appeared the successful performance of job tasks. Social security, positive opinion of managers, subordinates and peers as well as good working conditions were found as very important factors too, which are influencing the needs of young people. However, degree of control at work, benefits, responsibility and possibility to make decisions are relatively less important for young people. The research also revealed that the needs of young people in Lithuanian labour market at the age of 22-25 years do not correspond to A. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They could be ranked in the following sequence: 1) esteem needs, 2) self-actualization needs, 3) physiological needs, 4) belongingness needs, 6) security needs. Despite the fact that for the young people in Lithuania physiological needs are in the third place in order of importance, the sufficient salary and working conditions are among the most significant expectations. Social security in the security needs group is also of high interest.