Task-based Work Research Articles

Analysis of Work Effectiveness and Work Based on Tupoksion Service Quality at UPT BAPENDA South Sulawesi Province

This study at UPT Bapenda in South Sulawesi Province aims to evaluate the impact of work effectiveness and task-based work on service quality, utilizing a quantitative research approach with a sample of 89 employees. Analysis conducted through multiple linear regression using SPSS Version 22 reveals that work effectiveness (X1) does not significantly affect service quality (Y), with a significance value of 0.630, greater than the threshold of 0.005. Consequently, the hypothesis that X1 influences Y is rejected. Conversely, task-based work (X2) shows a significant positive effect on service quality, with a significance value of 0.000, below the 0.005 threshold, confirming the hypothesis that X2 impacts Y. Furthermore, the combined effect of X1 and X2 on service quality is significant, as indicated by an F-test result of 624.562, surpassing the F table value of 2.02619, with a significance level of 0.000. Thus, both factors together significantly influence service quality. In summary, while work effectiveness alone does not impact service quality, task-based work significantly enhances it, and their combined effect is also positive and significant.

The blessing and curse of "no strings attached": An automated literature analysis of psychological health and non-attachmental work in the digitalization era.

Amidst tremendous changes in the worlds of work in light of digitalization, non-attachmental work designs, where individuals gain income without being bound by a fixed administrative attachment to an employer, hold promises of self-actualization along with threats of insecurity. Today's technology boom and the consequent flexibility and uncertainty it brings into workers' lives may translate into inspiring growth opportunities or overloading pressure, contingent upon mental health and wellbeing impacts. This paper first provides a conceptualization of the non-attachmental work designs of the 21st century, before proceeding to an extensive mapping of literature at their intersection with psychological health. This involves a machine-learning-driven review of 1094 scientific articles using topic modeling, combined with in-depth manual content analyses and inductive-deductive cycles of pattern discovery and category building. The resulting scholarly blueprint reveals several tendencies, including a prevalence of positive psychology concepts in research on work designs with high levels of autonomy and control, contrasted with narratives of disempowerment in service- and task-based work. We note that some psychological health issues are researched with respect to specific work designs but not others, for instance neurodiversity and the role of gender in ownership-based work, self-image and digital addiction in content-based work, and ratings-induced anxiety in platform-mediated task-based work. We also find a heavy representation of 'heroic' entrepreneurs, quantitative methods, and western contexts in addition to a surprising dearth of analyses on the roles of policy and technological interventions. The results are positioned to guide academics, decision-makers, technologists, and workers in the pursuit of healthier work designs for a more sustainable future.

Seeing eye to eye: trustworthy embodiment for task-based conversational agents.

Smart speakers and conversational agents have been accepted into our homes for a number of tasks such as playing music, interfacing with the internet of things, and more recently, general chit-chat. However, they have been less readily accepted in our workplaces. This may be due to data privacy and security concerns that exist with commercially available smart speakers. However, one of the reasons for this may be that a smart speaker is simply too abstract and does not portray the social cues associated with a trustworthy work colleague. Here, we present an in-depth mixed method study, in which we investigate this question of embodiment in a serious task-based work scenario of a first responder team. We explore the concepts of trust, engagement, cognitive load, and human performance using a humanoid head style robot, a commercially available smart speaker, and a specially developed dialogue manager. Studying the effect of embodiment on trust, being a highly subjective and multi-faceted phenomena, is clearly challenging, and our results indicate that potentially, the robot, with its anthropomorphic facial features, expressions, and eye gaze, was trusted more than the smart speaker. In addition, we found that embodying a conversational agent helped increase task engagement and performance compared to the smart speaker. This study indicates that embodiment could potentially be useful for transitioning conversational agents into the workplace, and further in situ, "in the wild" experiments with domain workers could be conducted to confirm this.

Driven to succeed, or to leave? The variable impact of self-leadership in rideshare gig work

The nature of gig work – temporary, task-based work that is facilitated by applications and platforms – lacks the structural, interpersonal, and organizational dynamics of leadership. Instead, algorithms and software are the primary source of organizational and informational resources for a gig worker in a process known as ‘algorithmic management’. Job performance and career success depends primarily on the individual gig worker’s ability to establish objectives, identify strategies, and develop skills for job performance on their own. As such, success in gig work is likely to be connected to self-leadership ability. Drawing on the psychological perspectives of control theory and conservation of resources theory, we find that the agency provided by self-leadership is generally beneficial to rideshare drivers (N = 924) in that it increases both well-being and the intention to seek non-gig work. However, enacting this agency as a leaderless worker is an intensive process, and can either be a resource gain or drain. We find that workers experience better or worse outcomes, respectively, under circumstances of high job satisfaction or high financial stress. Implications and directions for future HRM research and practice among other gig and traditional worker populations are discussed.

Creative Labour in the Era of Covid-19: The Case of Freelancers

This working paper identifies some key areas of policy intervention for advancing socially sustainable and fair solutions for freelancers working in the creative industries, who are among those have suffered the most from the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.In particular, the authors focus on those who work entirely on their own account, without employees (i.e. the ‘solo self-employed’), and who undertake project- or task-based work on a fixed-term basis. While demand for some services (e.g. ICT services, software development, digital communication, media, medical translation and audiobooks) has grown, due to their digital nature or essentiality in the post-Covid reality, other types of creative work have suffered due to increased competition, decreased demand, or because they were entirely put on hold due to the pandemic.National government policy measures aimed at cushioning the impact of Covid-19 on workers’ livelihoods proved necessary but insufficient to guarantee long-term protection. This is because the eligibility criteria for such support measures exclude many freelancers in the creative industries. Moreover, those who have been guaranteed access to national government support are often confronted with the complexity and length of the administrative proceedings which accompany the implementation of these measures.Finally, career development and employability are vulnerable areas for freelancers due to there being a lack of (or insufficient) national funds dedicated to these areas.

Functional connectivity of the anterior insula associated with intolerance of uncertainty in youth.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a trait characteristic marked by distress in the face of insufficient information. Elevated IU has been implicated in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders, particularly during adolescence, which is characterized by dramatic neural maturation and the onset of anxiety disorders. Previous task-based work implicates the bilateral anterior insula in IU. However, the association between anterior insula intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) and IU has not been examined in adolescents. Fifty-eight healthy youth (mean age = 12.56; 55% boys) completed the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale for Children (IUSC-12) and a 6-minute resting state fMRI scan. Group-level analyses were conducted using a random-effects, ordinary least-squares model, including IUSC-12 scores (Total, Inhibitory subscale, Prospective subscale), and three nuisance covariates (age, sex, and mean framewise displacement). IUSC-12 Inhibitory subscale scores were predictive of iFC between the left and right anterior insula and right prefrontal regions. IUSC-12 Prospective subscale scores significantly predicted iFC between the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. IUSC-12 total scores did not predict significant iFC of the bilateral anterior insula. Follow-up analyses, including anxiety (MASC Total Score) in the models, failed to find significant results. This could suggest that the associations found between IUSC-12 scores and anterior insula iFC are not unique to IU and, rather, reflect a broader anxiety-related connectivity pattern. Further studies with larger samples are needed to tease apart unique associations. These findings bear significance in contributing to the literature evaluating the neural correlates of risk factors for anxiety in youth.

Physician and Pharmacist Medication Decision-Making in the Time of Electronic Health Records: Mixed-Methods Study.

BackgroundPrimary care needs to be patient-centered, integrated, and interprofessional to help patients with complex needs manage the burden of medication-related problems. Considering the growing problem of polypharmacy, increasing attention has been paid to how and when medication-related decisions should be coordinated across multidisciplinary care teams. Improved knowledge on how integrated electronic health records (EHRs) can support interprofessional shared decision-making for medication therapy management is necessary to continue improving patient care.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to examine how physicians and pharmacists understand and communicate patient-focused medication information with each other and how this knowledge can influence the design of EHRs.MethodsThis study is part of a broader cross-Canada study between patients and health care providers around how medication-related decisions are made and communicated. We visited community pharmacies, team-based primary care clinics, and independent-practice family physician clinics throughout Ontario, Nova Scotia, Alberta, and Quebec. Research assistants conducted semistructured interviews with physicians and pharmacists. A modified version of the Multidisciplinary Framework Method was used to analyze the data.ResultsWe collected data from 19 pharmacies and 9 medical clinics and identified 6 main themes from 34 health care professionals. First, Interprofessional Shared Decision-Making was not occurring and clinicians made decisions based on their understanding of the patient. Physicians and pharmacists reported indirect Communication, incomplete Information specifically missing insight into indication and adherence, and misaligned Processes of Care that were further compounded by EHRs that are not designed to facilitate collaboration. Scope of Practice examined professional and workplace boundaries for pharmacists and physicians that were internally and externally imposed. Physicians decided on the degree of the Physician-Pharmacist Relationship, often predicated by colocation.ConclusionsWe observed limited communication and collaboration between primary care providers and pharmacists when managing medications. Pharmacists were missing key information around reason for use, and physicians required accurate information around adherence. EHRs are a potential tool to help clinicians communicate information to resolve this issue. EHRs need to be designed to facilitate interprofessional medication management so that pharmacists and physicians can move beyond task-based work toward a collaborative approach.

T46. Neural Correlates of Intolerance of Uncertainty in Youth

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic construct marked by distress in the face of insufficient information. High levels of IU are associated with the development and maintenance of maladaptive anxiety and worry. Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by dramatic neural maturation and the onset of anxiety disorders. Previous task-based work in adolescents implicates the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in IU. However, the association between dACC intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) and IU has not been examined; this is the aim of the current study.

Pharmacist power: Prepare your pharmacy for the world of tomorrow

Task-based vs. unit-based work In larger health systems, it is common to assign a unit or units to a particular pharmacist. That pharmacist is expected to perform tasks for all the patients in that unit or units. I call this unit-based work distribution. This format made a lot of sense in the past. However, it may be inefficient today and in the future. Consider instead what I call taskbased work distribution. Instead of assigning a unit to a pharmacist for his or her shift, assign the pharmacist a certain task-set to complete for all patients. For example, instead of having three pharmacists in three separate units perform aminoglycoside dosing, chart review/monitoring, and checking/ entering/verifying medication orders, have one pharmacist do one of these tasks for all patients in the three units. This allows each pharmacist to “specialize” for that particular shift. With this newfound efficiency comes extra time. This extra time can be funneled into new services that pharmacists can provide to patients.

Developing English learners' transcultural skills through content- and task-based lessons

Abstract This article discusses the use of content- and task-based work in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) classroom contexts with a view to nurturing transcultural understanding between speakers of English from different cultural backgrounds. Three groups of EFL learners, one in Spain and two in Poland, aged 14 to 16, worked on a task-based unit of work about the African continent in their EFL class, which they subsequently discussed with their peers in the other two participating schools on a blog specifically set up to that end. By providing learners with the opportunity to voice their concerns on the topics discussed, the task-work sought to encourage their co-construction of new shared knowledge and the critical re-evaluation of their preconceived worldviews. Results suggest that the content- and task-based activities, along with a novel use of a virtual third space as a zone for transcultural learning and collaboration, fostered participants’ transcultural competence and their ability to communicate effectively in the international arena through English as an International Language (EIL).

A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State, by John C. Rule and Ben S. Trotter

A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State, by John C. Rule and Ben S. Trotter. Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014. xvii, 829 pp. $49.95 CAD (cloth). A welcome addition to the growing corpus of books on the history of information in early Europe, A World of Paper by the late John Rule and his former student Ben Trotter elegantly expands our understanding of diplomacy during the reign of the Sun King. The authors ask new questions of documents in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and draw on a vast amount of scholarship on bureaucracy. Rule and Trotter use the methods of scholars like Eric Ash, James Cortada, Jacob Soli, and Cornelia Vismann to bring the study of information within the purview of diplomacy. Questioning just what is modern about bureaucracy with the help of contingency theory, the authors analyze Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy's foreign affairs department during the latter part of Louis XIV's reign to show both that this ministry was highly specialized and organized by 1715 and that this system is not so different from bureaucracies of our time. The idea of strict barriers between patrimonial and bureaucratic systems already questioned by many scholars (esp. Peter Burke) is shown to be even more problematic in this close study of one of Louis XIV's major ministries. Moving away from Weber's idea of bureaucracy as a machine, the authors emphasize complex human activity and changeable, but sometimes routinized task-based work, as the driving forces in Torcy's department. Throughout the work the authors embrace contingency theory, which posits that organizational effectiveness reaches its pinnacle when structures are specialized to match the needs and size of the organization. They adopt this theory as a means of introducing flexibility in bureaucracy studies so as to avoid using evidence about the period between 1661 and 1715 as index of modernity (p. 30). The book is a long one, and almost half of the printed pages are dedicated to comprehensive notes. The text could have been split into multiple monographs (a biography of Torcy, a prosopography of the commis, and a study of the foreign ministry's portfolio) yet as a whole it is a testament to the life work of Rule. It is premised on the idea that administrative history should not judge the past by a Weberian idealized rationality but rather focus on the actual workings of power (p. 32). For Rule (1929-2013), the book is the culmination of decades of work, but it is also a publication that reflects Trotter's contributions and research (pp. xiv-xv). Rule and Trotter carefully map out the history of the foreign office under Louis XIV as a bureaucracy in motion, one that depended on unique, skilled individuals as much as it was shaped by the institutional, social, and economic structures of the regime. The title of the book refers to the great waves of paperwork that streamed into and out of the foreign secretary's chambers at Versailles, or later in Paris at Torcy's private residence. Discussion of the ministry's materiality and its inner workings animate this book even more so than the professional biographies of the clerks or ambassadors working under Torcy or his father Croissy. The things of ministers, clerks, and diplomats--their mail, horses, pens, gifts, and residences--open up a new appreciation for just how an ancien regime ministry functioned from day to day. Things move, and so Rule and Trotter describe the movements inherent in diplomacy, explaining the importance of equerries and the relais de poste, not to mention the complications of a mobile court. …

Using rewards and sanctions in the classroom: pupils’ perceptions of their own responses to current behaviour management strategies

The use of systems of rewards and sanctions within behaviour policies has now been adopted formally in UK schools. Such systems potentially represent competing theoretical ideas when considered alongside current approaches to teaching and learning. There is also opportunity for inconsistent use of rewards and sanctions resulting from the absence of a distinction between incentives and punishments and again between pupils’ task-based work and their social behaviour. This case study comprises one of three questionnaire surveys completed by UK secondary school pupils in Year 7 and Year 11. The findings show a complex range of pupil responses to different behaviour management strategies, as well as highlighting changes in pupil responses across the age groups. Some sanctions for classroom behaviour are also found to lead pupils to stay quiet, potentially affecting their ability to engage in all learning activities. Sanctions such as asking pupils to miss break, or giving detentions, are seen to be counter-productive in encouraging pupils to work hard in class. Some rewards, such as the giving of “stamps” work well in relation to how much pupils like the teacher, but they are not found to promote hard work in older pupils. The incentive of the school reward trip is universally effective, as is contact with home. These findings offer insight into the ways in which pupils respond to rewards and sanctions and therefore contribute to our understanding of how such systems might best be used.

New Perspectives in Teaching and Learning: Reforms or Educational Revolution?

Although all disciplines, including education, have experienced large-scale transformations during the last several decades owing to remarkable scientific development, in many instances, current practices in education still reflect the philosophy and standards of the mass production model which was a direct product of the Industrial Revolution. Namely, in order to educate as many children as possible in a short period of time, children were grouped into classes according to their age and not their abilities, needs, learning styles and social backgrounds; all learners in a particular class were exposed to the same curriculum and taught on a one subject-one lesson basis by teachers who usually specialized in one specific subject area. Today, many decades later, learners are basically still placed in classes according to age, are exposed to a curriculum that does not always successfully prepare them for the future workforce and are taught by teachers who often specialize in only one subject area, thus depriving learners of full exposure to the needs of the twentyfirst century, that is, interdisciplinary, collaborative task-based project work. All things considered, education throughout the world is still characterized by artificial barriers to learning; for example, holding lessons within the four walls of classrooms, using a bell system to denote the end of one subject/class and the beginning of the next subject/class, utilizing content-driven curricula based on the philosophy of one-size-fits-all classroom instruction. With the explosion of information in the fields of science and technology, professionals in education recognize the dramatic changes that have occurred during the last few decades, and acknowledge that a new insight into teaching and learning has developed. Contemporary teaching practices in the classroom are very different to the methods of instruction utilized in past decades; twenty-first century teaching is centred on a completely different approach to the understanding of the learning process, and thus also, to the choice of accompanying classroom activities. Information gathered from multidisciplinary scientific research in the field of education has contributed significantly towards understanding the processes involved in acquisition of knowledge and skills. The pedagogical branch of neuroscience has offered educators essential information regarding the learners’ preferred cognitive path in acquisition of knowledge and skills, and how teachers can offer the most effective scaffolding in order to maximize the learners’ capacity to acquire knowledge, learning strategies and skills. The above-mentioned unique challenges have made a great impact in the field of education and have launched a remarkable transformation in the classroom; not only are educators and learners required to take on new roles in the classroom, but also, the whole classroom environment has been channeled in the direction of the development of cooperative, collaborative learning communities. Transformation in the contemporary classroom extends beyond mere reforms of existing teaching and learning methods or modernization of teaching/learning materials and techniques to embrace the dynamism of a revolution in education that includes empowering learners to self-invest in their education and the reconstruction of classroom strategies to meet these new perspectives. This new rationale for education recognizes learners and teachers as colearners in a learning community that is based on shared teacher-learner responsibilities in settings that spread beyond the classroom walls and the school to include authentic learner experiences, often in the workplace, itself. Education systems that are contingent on learner uniformity, learner conformity and learner compliance are being replaced by systems that personalize education rather than customize education, that teach the learner and not the discipline, in other words, that meet the needs of the future. The development of transferable learner strategies, critical/reflective/rational thinking skills, creativity, leadership qualities including perseverance, collaboration, problem-solving skills, effective communication and conflict resolution skills, together with growth of global awareness and media literacy, highlight twenty-first century education. 1. New Roles of the Teacher and the Learner As a result of new perspectives on standard occurrences in the classroom, teachers are required to re-examine their teaching strategies and learner expectations. The contemporary educational scene focuses on learner-centered

Entropy: A Conceptual Approach to Measuring Situation-level Workload Within Emergency Care and its Relationship to Emergency Department Crowding

BackgroundEmergency department (ED) crowding correlates with patient safety. Difficulties quantifying crowding and providing solutions were highlighted in the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report calling for the application of advanced industrial engineering (IE) research techniques to evaluate ED crowding. ED personnel workload is a related concept, with potential reciprocal effects between the two. Collaboration between emergency medicine and IE is needed to address crowding and ED personnel workload. ObjectiveWe review ED crowding and workload literature, relationships between workload and ED crowding, and the potential application of information theory as implemented in IE frameworks entitled “entropy” in evaluating both topics. DiscussionIE techniques have applications for emergency medicine and have been successful in helping improve ED operations. Lean and Six Sigma applications are some of these techniques. Existing ED workload measures don't account for all aspects of work in the ED (acuity, efficiency, tasks, etc.) Crowding scales, such as NEDOCS (National ED Overcrowding Study) and EDWIN (ED Work Index), fail to predict ED crowding. A new measurement “entropy” may provide a more comprehensive evaluation of ED workload and may predict work overload seen with crowding. Entropy measures task-based work and the information flow involved. By assigning an entropy value to patient type-specific tasks, we might predict when the ED is overwhelmed, and crowded. ConclusionsIE techniques provide solutions to the ED crowding problem and improve ED workload. We propose a technique novel to medicine: “Entropy,” derived from information theory, which may provide insight into ED personnel workload, its potential for measuring ED crowding, and possibly, in predicting an overwhelming situation.

Engaging life in two Irish nursing home units for people with dementia: Quantitative comparisons before and after implementing household environments

Objectives: This study compares the Social Engagement and Interactive Occupation of residents with dementia in two Irish nursing homes, before and after conversion to a household model environment. The changes were an open plan design and a functioning unit kitchen, supported by a homemaker role and operational policies which reduced task-based work in favour of person-centred care offering choice. Method: A snapshot observation method was used to obtain quantitative data of resident activity using the Assessment Tool for Occupation and Social Engagement (ATOSE). Residents were assessed for four hours, on seven different weekdays, over a six-week period both pre- and post-renovation. The exception to this was the assessment of the traditional model unit (TMU) for Nursing Home 1 which was reduced to four days due to the early start of the building work. Results: The results were consistent for both nursing homes and data were aggregated. Residents spent more time in the communal living spaces and were more likely to be active and engaged in the household model units (HMUs) compared to the TMUs. Using the independent t-test, these changes were found to be highly significant (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Creating an HMU increased the Interactive Occupation and Social Engagement of residents in the communal areas of the two nursing homes. The physical environment change, in conjunction with supportive staff procedures and organizational initiatives, improved the well-being of residents with dementia. The outcomes must be viewed in context with financial implications.

El enfoque por tareas en la didáctica de la traducción jurídica: propuesta de aplicación

The establishment of the European Higher Education Area brings along the need not to focus the teaching/learning processes merely upon the teacher's lectures but to allow the student to manage his own learning process. Taking this fact as a basic premise, this study puts forward a didactic proposal for French-Spanish legal translation in which task-based work and encouragement of the learner autonomy play an essential role. The proposal tries to fit together the different aspects of legal translation using a global and task-based approach.

Task-Based Lead Exposures and Work Site Characteristics of Bridge Surface Preparation and Painting Contractors

This study of bridge painters working for small contractors in Massachusetts investigated the causes of elevated blood lead levels and assessed their exposure to lead. Bridge work sites were evaluated for a 2-week period during which personal and area air samples and information on work site characteristics and lead abatement methods were gathered. Short-duration personal inhalable samples collected from 18 tasks had geometric means (GM) of 3 μg/m3 to 7286 μg/m3. Full-shift, time-weighted average (TWA) inhalable samples (⩾6 hours) collected from selected workers and work sites had GMs of 2 μg/m3 to15,704 μg/m3; 80% of samples exceeded the permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 50 μg/m3, on average by a factor of 30. Area inhalable samples collected from three locations ranged from 2 μg/m3 to 40,866 μg/m3 from inside the containment, 2 μg/m3 to 471 μg/m3 from a distance of <6 meters, and 2 μg/m3 to 121 μg/m3 from >6 meters from the containment. Seventy nine percent of the area samples from inside the containment exceeded the PEL on average by a factor of 140. Through observations of work site characteristics, opportunities for improving work methods were identified, particularly the institution of engineering controls (which were only occasionally present) and improvement in the design and construction of the containment structure. The high levels of airborne lead exposures indicate a potential for serious exposure hazard for workers and environmental contamination, which can be mitigated through administrative and engineering controls. Although these data were collected over 10 years ago, a 2005 regulatory review by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of its lead in construction standard reported that elevated lead exposures and blood lead levels, high occurrence of noncompliance with the lead standard, and nonimplementation of newer technology especially among small painting firms employing <10 workers are still widespread. As a result, the findings of this study are still quite germane even a decade after the introduction of the new OSHA standard.

The Impact of Sociotechnical Task Demands on Use of Worker Discretion and Functional Skill

This research applies theoretical propositions from macro-organizational research to the level of task-based work as performed by individual workers. A model, theoretical propositions, and testable hypotheses are developed which relate sociotechnical demand to decisional discretion and worker skill at the task level. Measures of sociotechnical demand are developed for the purpose of this research and the remaining measures of decisional discretion and worker skill are taken from the Functional Job Analysis system. An archival set of 100 tasks from a wide variety of jobs was rated by trained raters on measures of sociotechnical demand, decisional discretion, and worker skill. Analysis of these ratings provided generally good support for our theoretical predictions, with decisional discretion mediating the impact of both technological and social demands on cognitive skill. Complexity of social skill increased exponentially as a function of greater social demand, suggesting some important implications for labor economic theory and analysis. The results provided a strong empirical validation of the Functional Job Analysis model. Implications of the findings for social scientists, human resource planners, government policy makers, and human resource specialists are discuss

Task-Based Instruction

In the last twenty years or so, language teaching has changed to incorporate a higher proportion of meaning-based activities, in contrast to the era in which form was primary and a concern for meaning only followed the establishment of control over specific forms. Now, a wide range of classroom options are available for participant organization, content incorporation, and the units by which teaching is organized. In order to locate task-based work within such a range of options, it is necessary to address definitional issues at the outset, since many different contemporary options give task a central role. For the purposes of this chapter, a task is regarded as an activity which satisfies the following criteria: