Transparent Feedback Research Articles

Design studio discourse in architecture in Australia: The role of formative feedback in assessment

Studio-based teaching is a central component of the curriculum in architecture where designs are discussed, critiqued and challenged in the assessment of students’ creative works. Drawing on Dannels’ genre framework and a holistic approach to assessment, this article presents an analysis of design studio discourse based on non-participant records of observations of design studio presentations/crits and audio recordings of student focus groups and interviews with design studio tutors. Aspects of design studio pedagogy explored are the studio as context of learning and the discourse of guidance and feedback. Findings reveal the tension between providing explicit guidance that may constrain the freedom required for creative works, the difficulty of providing transparent feedback and the centrality of the subjective in design assessment. The studio as context of learning remains a challenging forum, in which the subjective nature of design is openly negotiated in discourse based, to a considerable extent, on tacit discipline understandings.

Automation Support for Mobile App Quality Assurance – A Tool Landscape

Competitive pressure in app stores, as well as direct and transparent feedback of app store reviews have resulted in an increased demand for outstanding app quality and user experience. At the same time, reduced time-to-market, decreased budgets and time available for quality assurance, and careful user experience design have to be considered. In response, an enormous market for mobile app quality and user experience measurement tools has grown around the mobile app store ecosystems. Developers following lean and agile development approaches continuously produce new features and ready-to-ship software increments. In those settings, budgets for evaluation and familiarization into new tools are very limited. Currently there are alone more than 28 tools and frameworks for functional test automation and more than 16 different device clouds available. For most of the software developing companies, it is impossible to evaluate and test all of them. In this paper, we present a classification in order to help navigation through the mobile app quality tools landscape for easier selection and more targeted evaluation of tools.

Tradeoff Between Distributed Social Learning and Herding Effect in Online Rating Systems

We investigated how social diffusion increased client participation in an online rating system and, in turn, how this herding effect may affect the metrics of client feedback over the course of years. In a field study, we set up a transparent feedback system for university services: During the process of making service requests, clients were presented with short-term trends of client satisfaction with relevant service outcomes. Deploying this feedback system initially increased satisfaction moderately. Thereafter, mean satisfaction levels remained stable between 50% and 60%. Interestingly, at the individual client level, satisfaction increased significantly with experience despite the lack of any global trend across all users. These conflicting results can be explained at the social network level: If satisfied clients attracted new clients with more negative attitudes (a herding effect), then the net increase in service clients may dampen changes in global trends at the individual level. Three observations support this hypothesis: first, the number of service clients providing feedback increased monotonically over time. Second, spatial analysis of service requests showed a pattern of expansion from floor to floor. Finally, satisfaction increased over iterations only in clients who scored below average.

La transparencia en la toma de decisiones de salud pública

Improving the quality and transparency of governmental healthcare decision-making has an impact on the health of the population through policies, organisational management and clinical practice. Moreover, the comparison between healthcare centres and the transparent feedback of results to professionals and to the wider public contribute directly to improved results. The “Results Centre” of the Catalan healthcare system measures and disseminates the results achieved by the different healthcare centres in order to facilitate a shared decision-making process, thereby enhancing the quality of healthcare provided to the population of Catalonia (Spain). This is a pioneering initiative in Spain and is aligned with the most advanced countries in terms of policies of transparency and accountability.

Empirical validation of the Operative Entrustability Assessment using resident performance in autologous breast reconstruction and hand surgery

BackgroundIn 2013, we developed the Operative Entrustability Assessment (OEA) to facilitate evaluation and documentation of resident operative skills. This web-based tool provides real-time, transparent feedback to residents on operative performance. This study evaluated the construct validity of the OEA, assessing its association with operative time. MethodsWe used simple and multiple linear regression to estimate associations between OEA scores and operative time in selected procedures performed. ResultsOEAs were completed for 93 autologous breast reconstructions and 185 hand procedures. Self-assessed OEA was associated with shorter operative time in breast (p = 0.008) and hand (p = 0.036) cases. Evaluator OEA was associated with shorter operative time in breast (p = 0.018), but not hand cases (p = 0.377). Post-graduate year was not associated. ConclusionsThe OEA demonstrates construct validity: increasing scores are associated with shorter operative time and are better predictors of operative time than post-graduate year, making it an option for documenting competence prior to graduation.

Empirical Validation of the Operative Entrustability Assessment Using Resident Performance in Autologous Breast Reconstruction and Hand Surgery

Abstract Background In 2013, we developed the Operative Entrustability Assessment (OEA) to facilitate evaluation and documentation of resident operative skills. This web-based tool provides real-time, transparent feedback to residents on operative performance. This study evaluated the construct validity of the OEA, assessing its association with operative time. Methods We used simple and multiple linear regression to estimate associations between OEA scores and operative time in selected procedures performed. Results OEAs were completed for 93 autologous breast reconstructions and 185 hand procedures. Self-assessed OEA was associated with shorter operative time in breast (p = 0.008) and hand (p = 0.036) cases. Evaluator OEA was associated with shorter operative time in breast (p = 0.018), but not hand cases (p = 0.377). Post-graduate year was not associated. Conclusions The OEA demonstrates construct validity: increasing scores are associated with shorter operative time and are better predictors of operative time than post-graduate year, making it an option for documenting competence prior to graduation.

Differences in the Observed Frequency Distributions of Male and Female Feedback Behaviors

In the workplace, the process of evaluating and discussing the performance of both employees and managers involves the giving and receiving of feedback. According to Alvero et al. (2001) performance feedback has been defined in a number of different ways. Some of these definitions include: (a) information that is given to persons regarding the quantity or quality of their past (Prue & Fairbank, 1981); (b) information transmitted back to the responder following a particular performance (Sulzer-Azaroff & Mayer, 1991); (c) information that tells performers what and how well they are doing (Rummler & Brache, 1995); and (d) information about performance that allows an individual to adjust his or her performance (Daniels, 2000). The process generally involves a discussion of the individual's strengths or weaknesses with suggestions on how to improve upon weaknesses. The role of feedback is to align workplace behavior with the overall goals of a team or an organization (Harms & Roebuck, 2010).An organization's feedback environment has been defined as the amount and availability of positive and negative feedback from different sources (Steelman et al., 2004). Clearly, employees receive feedback information from various sources (Greller, 1980; Morrison, 1993), and some authors have suggested that supervisor and coworker feedback sources are the most practical and relevant from the feedback recipient's point of view. Ashford (1989) did find the most commonly used source of feedback was supervisors or managers (Alvero et al., 2001).The giving and receiving of feedback has long been used as a tool for facilitating improvement and advancement within organizations and businesses (Levy & Williams, 2004). Giving feedback involves exhibiting respectfulness and professionalism when recognizing the strengths and improvement areas in others. Receiving feedback focuses on an individual's ability to accept feedback without becoming defensive or perceiving that he or she is being personally attacked. In addition, receiving feedback also includes being able to reflect on the feedback received and to integrate it to enhance one's development (Swank & McCarthy, 2013).McCarthy and Garavan (2001) suggested employees must receive constant support and feedback on their performance and have opportunities to gain more expertise in their roles through learning and development programs. Prior research has shown that weekly feedback is the most common frequency for feedback delivery (e.g. Alvero et al., 2001), whereas Balcazar et al. (1985) found that daily feedback has been the most frequently used. Two studies, one involving a manufacturing environment and the other in retail management, found daily feedback to be key to better relationships and to enhance the effectiveness of a performance management intervention (Cooper, 2006; Pampino et al., 2003).Other researchers believe feedback provides a potentially valuable resource for employees to enhance their development and to improve performance (Ashford, 1986; Ashford & Cummings, 1983; Ashford & Tsui, 1991; Bennett et al., 1990; Fedor, 1991; Ilgen et al., 1979; Ilgen et al., 1981; Northcraft & Ashford, 1990; Stone & Stone, 1985). Additionally, employees want their managers to provide them with feedback and have even identified the ability to give feedback as the number one key characteristic of great leaders. Employees value their manager's ability to give frequent, transparent feedback. In her study, Sullivan (2013) found that individuals unexpectedly rated proactive feedback practices as more important and influential than leadership experience and technical knowledge.Feedback is an essential element of an organization and influences organizational goals, encourages creativity, increases trust, and motivates all organizational employees (Mulder, 2013). Clearly, feedback is important to managers and leaders because employees' actions and behaviors can be influential in determining whether an organization is successful or not in achieving its goals. …

Reputation of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the UK: the patients’ perspective

Our intention is to shed theoretical and practical light on the professional reputation of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) in the UK by drawing on theories from management literature, particularly concerning reputation. Since professional reputation is socially constructed by stakeholders, we used interpretivist methods to conduct a qualitative study of patients (stakeholders) to gain an insight into their view of the profession. Findings from our focus groups highlighted the importance of “soft-wired skills” and showed a perception – reality gap in the interaction between patients and doctors. They also highlighted the importance of consistency, relational coordination, mechanisms to enable transparent feedback, and professional processes of governance. To help understand how best to manage the reputation of the specialty, we also explored how this is affected by the media and the Internet.

Elections and Social Media

Today, using of the internet extended social media by individuals habitually enables both the business firms and politicians to reach their target mass at any time. In this context, internet has become a popular place recently where political communication and campaigns are realized by ensuring a new dimension to political campaigns. When we examine the posts and discussions in the social media, we can say that they are converted into open political sessions. As there are no censorship in such channels, individuals have a freedom to reach to any partial/impartial information and obtain transparent and fast feedback, and with this regard, political parties, leaders and candidates have a chance to be closer to electors. In this study, it is aimed to give information about the social media, present what medium has been used for election campaigns from the past until today and besides, by considering the effects of effective and efficient use of social media and new trends related to the internet by politicians, together with their applications in the world, to make suggestions about its situation and application in Turkey.

Feedback and organizations: Feedback is good, feedback-friendly culture is better.

Scholars have noted that an incomplete understanding of various important aspects of feedback still remains prominent (Whitaker & Levy, 2012). The value of organisational feedback culture on feedback outcomes is a recognised gap in the literature. The present article begins with a brief conceptualisation and definition of individual feedback and highlights the element of meaning as a principle intricate to all feedback techniques. The article then builds a case for the added benefits of creating a feedback-friendly culture in order to gain more insight and enhance the meaningfulness of feedback. Three recommendations are offered to support such a culture including the promotion of the learning continuum, the fostering of a trusting climate, and the endorsement of authentic dialogue. Finally, the implications and future research directions are discussed.Keywords: feedback, feedback-friendly culture, psychological safety and trustIn a recent article that has toured the Web globally, Sullivan (2013) describes how Google is using an algorithm-based approach in decision making, incipiently referred to as analytics, in order to make room for innovation and growth within the firm. Google's strategic shift toward a people focus has contributed to enhancing the company as a whole. When considering the latest progress of the company based on the evidence shown by the stock market (Giles, 2013), its decision to make this shift paid off. The underlying principle of this novel human resource management strategy is simple: Every important decision that has an impact on future outcomes of the organisation are made by people-it is in the firm's best interest then, to make sure that the management practices of those people are at their finest (Bryant, 2011; Sullivan, 2013). As the research on this company's own internal data has recognised countless times, the number one key characteristic of great leaders as identified by employees is their ability to give frequent, transparent feedback. Proactive feedback practices were unexpectedly rated by associates as more important and influential than leadership experience and technical knowledge (Sullivan, 2013).Individual feedback has generated a fare amount of research and has been developing over several decades (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWall, 2003). Only recently have researchers and leaders began to think about feedback from a large-scale perspective (Dahling & O'Malley, 2011). The present article provides a brief section on individual feedback and subsequently introduces recent empirical evidence neighbouring the impact of a feedback-friendly culture on organisations. The article then offers guidelines to work toward building and nurturing a feedback-friendly organisational culture based on sound research and experience stemming from more than 20 years of practice in various organisations worldwide. Finally, the article will close with future directions and reflections for researchers and practitioners.FeedbackIndividual feedback has long been utilized as a tool for facilitating improvement and advancement within organisations and businesses (Levy & Williams, 2004). Feedback is defined as a dynamic communication process occurring between two individuals that convey information regarding the receiver's performance in the accomplishment of work-related tasks. For most, feedback is used to provide information on proximal goals and immediate and recent behaviours. It is also utilized to inform members of desirable development and outcomes (Baker, 2010; London, 2003). Evidence shows that a company that makes effective use of feedback practices have a greater competitive advantage especially in today's fierce economic climate (Baker, 2010; Chatman & Cha, 2003). Indeed, feedback is an essential element in organisations because it binds organisational goals with continuity and fluidity, boosts creativity, propels trust, and drives motivation in individuals (Mulder, 2013). …

Feedback from recently returned veterans on an anonymous web-based brief alcohol intervention

BackgroundVeterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) are at increased risk for alcohol misuse, and innovative methods are needed to improve their access to alcohol screening and brief interventions (SBI). This study adapted an electronic SBI (e-SBI) website shown to be efficacious in college students for OEF/OIF veterans and reported findings from interviews with OEF/OIF veterans about their impressions of the e-SBI.MethodsOutpatient veterans of OEF/OIF who drank ≥3 days in the past week were recruited from a US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Deployment Health Clinic waiting room. Veterans privately pretested the anonymous e-SBI then completed individual semistructured audio-recorded interviews. Their responses were analyzed using template analysis to explore domains identified a priori as well as emergent domains.ResultsDuring interviews, all nine OEF/OIF veterans (1 woman and 8 men) indicated they had received feedback for risky alcohol consumption. Participants generally liked the standard-drinks image, alcohol-related caloric and monetary feedback, and the website’s brevity and anonymity (a priori domains). They also experienced challenges with portions of the e-SBI assessment and viewed feedback regarding alcohol risk and normative drinking as problematic, but described potential benefits derived from the e-SBI (emergent domains). The most appealing e-SBIs would ensure anonymity and provide personalized transparent feedback about alcohol-related risk, consideration of the context for drinking, strategies to reduce drinking, and additional resources for veterans with more severe alcohol misuse.ConclusionsResults of this qualitative exploratory study suggest e-SBI may be an acceptable strategy for increasing OEF/OIF veteran access to evidenced-based alcohol SBI.

Abstract 199: Hardwiring Institutional Learning Through Team-Based Problem-Solving in a Pediatric Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit

Introduction: Our purpose was to develop a high reliability system (The SWARM) to empower frontline staff to share information regarding communication and process inefficiencies to rapidly develop solutions. Hypothesis: A systematic process for recognition, evaluation, and transparent feedback would increase the use of problem-solving. Methods: A multidisciplinary team, led by a physician and nurse, developed an email strategy to let frontline staff identify problems in real-time and solve and spread this knowledge throughout the CVICU and Heart Center. Problems submitted were outside the scope of institutional patient safety reporting. Unless immediate attention was required, the SWARM team evaluated entries weekly. Entries were categorized as: 1) Useful information to share with ICU staff; 2) More information needed to be obtained and personnel consulted; or 3) A multidisciplinary task force needed to generate consensus and evidence-based guidelines. Solutions were shared with ICU staff via direct email and a monthly newsletter. After 6 months ICU staff were surveyed with 5 questions regarding awareness, utility, and ease of use of the SWARM process. Staff were resurveyed after re-education and institution of leadership walk-rounds. Rates of SWARM entries before and after re-education were compared using Fisher’s Exact Test for proportions.*p<.05 Results: Of the total 65 SWARM entries, 9% were level 1, 86% were level 2 and 5% were level 3. Entries were categorized into problem types and are shown in the Pareto Chart as percent of total(See Chart). Pre- and post- survey results indicated that staff awareness increased from 70% to 91% and staff understanding of utility increased from 57% to 75%. After re-education, use in CVICU increased by 417% (0.7/week to 2.9/week)*. The increased rate of use of the SWARM system has been sustained for 8 weeks post education. The current rate is 1.8/week. The top two Solutions by category were Re-Education (62%) and Practice Change (17%). Conclusions: A system was developed to better manage quality through real-time awareness of our performance. The formal creation of a standardized context for information sharing has resulted in a significant increase in the performance of problem-solving. This multidisciplinary effort allows for minimizing unnecessary variation in how quality improvement efforts are identified and performed.

A Framework for Control System Design Subject to Average Data-Rate Constraints

This paper studies discrete-time control systems subject to average data-rate limits. We focus on a situation where a noisy linear system has been designed assuming transparent feedback and, due to implementation constraints, a source-coding scheme (with unity signal transfer function) has to be deployed in the feedback path. For this situation, and by focusing on a class of source-coding schemes built around entropy coded dithered quantizers, we develop a framework to deal with average data-rate constraints in a tractable manner that combines ideas from both information and control theories. As an illustration of the uses of our framework, we apply it to study the interplay between stability and average data-rates in the considered architecture. It is shown that the proposed class of coding schemes can achieve mean square stability at average data-rates that are, at most, 1.254 bits per sample away from the absolute minimum rate for stability established by Nair and Evans. This rate penalty is compensated by the simplicity of our approach.

An Achievable Data-Rate Region Subject to a Stationary Performance Constraint for LTI Plants

This note studies the performance of control systems subject to average data-rate limits. We focus on a situation where a noisy LTI system has been designed assuming transparent feedback and, due to implementation constraints, a source coding scheme (with unity signal transfer function) has to be deployed in the feedback path. For this situation and by focusing on a specific source coding scheme, we give a closed-form upper bound on the minimal average data-rate that allows one to attain a given performance level. Instrumental to our main result is the explicit solution of a related signal-to-noise ratio minimization problem, subject to a closed loop performance constraint.

Why e-Service Development is Different: A Literature Review

As the importance of services in our society increases, so does the importance of systematic approaches to develop these services - commonly termed New Service Development (NSD). An increasing proportion of services are now electronic services delivered over the Internet. The purpose of this article is to derive a set of key attributes that distinguish electronic from non-electronic services and their potential influence on NSD. These key attributes are then used as a framework for analyzing NSD literature with regards to their applicability for the development of electronic services. This analysis reveals several gaps in NSD research. In particular, current NSD methods are not well equipped to address the rapidly changing nature and specific cost structure found in electronic services. Current NSD methods are also not well suited to fully exploit the various advantages that electronic services offer over non-electronic counterparts, in particular, the transparent feedback generated by service usage and potentials for continuous improvement and rapid deployment of service changes.

Australian pharmacy programme experiential placements: comprehensive planning for assessment and evaluation

Experiential placements are increasingly recognised as an essential component of university programmes, providing students with real‐world contexts to apply their knowledge and to develop practical skills and personal attributes. In Australia, professions such as pharmacy have traditionally developed experiential placement programmes within state and territory regulatory requirements and situations. The evolution of national competency and accreditation frameworks provide opportunities for collaborative approaches, including consideration of experiential placements. A research study was conducted in 2007 using Australian Government Carrick Institute funding to map experiential placements across Australian pharmacy programmes. Based on university interviews and programme mapping, consultations with over 250 participants and handbook analysis, various structures and approaches for university experiential placements were evident. In relation to learning and assessment tasks, some universities use some elements of planning process. In these, objectives are linked to pre‐placement preparatory and placement learning tasks and there are opportunities for student negotiation of assessment tasks and criteria. However, in relation to assessment and explicit criteria, links to the competencies of the profession and to more generic skills were generally vague. While student evaluations of experiential placement programmes were usually evident, a systematic evaluation process involving various stakeholders including transparent processes and feedback regarding the impact on future programme planning was not present. This study highlights the importance of comprehensive planning and scaffolding of learning related to competency and other outcomes, including relevant assessment tasks and explicit criteria based on graduated descriptors during experiential placements.

Case Analysis: Comfort N Care

Comfort N Care is an organization, which deals in personal loan, home loan and credit card. For Comfort and Care retention and uplifting employees as well as customer satisfaction are most important. Comfort N Care was established an ICICI’s franchisee on 15th October 2000 with joint effort of Mr. Ajay Sharma and Mr. Agarwal who happened to be the vice president of ICICI Ltd. On 27th October 2000 ICICI awarded him the franchisee of home loans too. Comfort N Care slowly positioned itself as one of the strongest franchisee of ICICI Ltd. The key points of success of Comfort N Care are human values, personal motivation, and it focused more on attitudes behavior and ethics. With well coordinated ideas good segmentation, philosophy and innovative organization structure Comfort N Care is more focused on customer satisfaction. Besides that, Comfort N Care has changed focus from intra relations to inter relations, from independence to dependence with changing environment. Its customer and external customer have an open ended and transparent feedback mechanism. By such transparency and commitment Comfort N Care got a good position in the industry and started fulfilling the dream of it’s customer of 'home sweet home' in an effective way Comfort N Care has achieved target three times more than it was fixed by ICICI bank Ltd. Comfort N Care was also rewarded as the 4th best franchisee in India and the best in north India in the year 2002

On improving dynamic decision‐making: implications from multiple‐process cognitive theory

AbstractDecision environments that afford unambiguous and transparent feedback allow humans to build up corresponding mental models that give them good decision guidance. But in many complex decision situations, such feedback is not available. In such environments people not only show initial misperceptions, but also fail to learn. Education and training have therefore been proposed, but with limited success. This paper applies multiple‐process cognitive theory to explain findings of poor learning and sub‐optimal decision‐making. The applied theory suggests that intuitive processes are default in decision‐making and natural learning. Analytic processes are more seldom applied. Implications for education and training in dynamic decision‐making are suggested, and in light of the primacy of intuitive processes, include massive exposure to complex dynamic decision‐making in order to improve upon intuition in such environments. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.