Alberta Health Services (AHS) has introduced e-learning for health professionals to expand their existing training, offer flexible web-based learning opportunities, and reduce training time and cost. This study is designed to evaluate the usability and usefulness of an e-learning module for a patient clinical information system scheduling application. A cost-effective framework for usability evaluation has been developed and conceptualized as part of this research. Low-Cost Rapid Usability Engineering (LCRUE), Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA), and Heuristic Evaluation (HE) criteria for web-based learning were adapted and combined with the Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) questionnaire. To evaluate the introduction of the e-learning application, usability was assessed in two groups of users: frontline users and informatics consultant users. The effectiveness of the LCRUE, CTA, and HE when combined with the SUMI was also investigated. Results showed that the frontline users are satisfied with the usability of the e-learning platform. Overall, the informatics consultant users are satisfied with the application, although they rated the application as poor in terms of efficiency and control. The results showed that many areas where usability was problematic are related to general interface usability (GIU), and instructional design and content, some of which might account for the poorly rated aspects of usability. The findings should be of interest to developers, designers, researchers, and usability practitioners involved in development of e-learning systems. / Graduate / 0769 / 0984 / 0541 / tdafalla@uvic.ca; tdafalla@gmail.com

South Africa has witnessed radical policy reforms since the advent of the new democratic dispensation in 1994. As provincial, district and local practitioners developed responses to those new national education policies, implementation issues were revealed in all their complexity. Policy implementation became one of the most difficult challenges South Africa had to contend with. It necessitated the development of the capacity of the state and its people to implement policy. The complexities of the people development environment in South Africa create a range of challenges for development. The lack of multi-level empirical data on training effects continues to exacerbate this state of affairs. This context requires that comprehensive assessment mechanisms be put in place for training programmes aimed at the realisation of policy goals. The broad purpose of this inquiry, therefore, is to determine the impact of an education management development training intervention as it passes through different levels of the education system in South Africa - national, provincial, district and local. The following key questions guided this investigation. Firstly, how do stakeholder understandings of “education management development” transfer from one level to another in a cascade model of training? And secondly, what is the operational impact of an education management development-training programme at the different levels (i.e., province, district and school) of the education system? Questionnaires, free attitude interviews and observations were used as key data collection instruments. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative strategies for making sense of the training information. Data was interpreted against the backdrop of the literature on the “transfer of training”, and these findings are represented in the last three chapters of this thesis. This research generated four major findings, with a variety of subsidiary findings, which deepen our insights into policy implementation as it relates to education management development in South Africa. Some of the major findings of this study are that: a) The organisers did not in the first place conduct the baseline study on training needs and secondly, they did not take into consideration the organisational requirements of the anticipated training. This anomaly could ultimately compromise the outcomes of this intervention. b) The policy deployment processes of the North West Department of Education (of ensuring that the governmental policies for quality, cost and service delivery are understood from the highest to the lowest level of the organisation) are fraught with problems that undermined basic understandings of the Education Management Development training programme which was conducted between 1998 – 2000. c) Successful policy implementation depends crucially on resource allocation and, in the case of the Education Management Development Training Programme, the nature and magnitude of allocated resources e.g., transport provision could not guarantee positive training results; and d) The overly rationalistic view adopted by the trainers of the Education Management development-training programme did not take into account the complex contexts within which change unfolds. Resultantly, the changing of the roles of facilitators could not be planned-for in advance. The significance of this study is that it identifies the barriers to learning in training events, and sheds new light on the transfer of training problem that continues to undermine organisational change and human resource development. Some of the unique findings of the study can be found in the fact that the Expert Trainers could only recall a few intentions of the EMD modular training. The District Facilitators displayed limited knowledge of the disciplinary procedures in their areas of operation and there was limited conceptualisation of the EMD by the principals of schools. / Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

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Cette étude est fondée sur deux constats dans le domaine du transport aérien : la conception des systèmes automatisés, et notamment du système de gestion de vol, découle d’un point de vue techno-centré ne prenant pas en compte le point de vue des opérateurs ; le système de gestion de vol est un système complexe entrainant une difficulté à l’appréhender pour optimiser l’accès aux fonctions existantes. Cette recherche a pour objectif de fournir des recommandations en vue de la conception d’une nouvelle interface du système de gestion de vol partant d’un point de vue centré sur l’opérateur. Pour cela, deux études ont été menées ayant pour objectif la réalisation d’une analyse cognitive de la tâche de navigation (tâche pour laquelle le système de gestion de vol a été initialement conçu). Pour ce faire, nous avons conduit des entretiens auprès de pilotes aux expériences diverses. Les résultats de ces deux premières études fournissent des éléments d’informations quant aux besoins informationnels des pilotes et nous informent aussi sur les exigences de la tâche et leur impact sur la conscience de la situation des pilotes. A la suite de ces résultats, des recommandations de conception pour une nouvelle interface de système de gestion de vol ont été émises visant à répondre aux besoins informationnels des pilotes et ainsi à améliorer leur conscience de la situation. Ces recommandations ont été testées lors d’une troisième étude. Les résultats enregistrés montrent que la réduction de l’effet de dissociation de l’attention ainsi que la contextualisation de l’information de manière cohérente par rapport à l’activité des pilotes permet d’améliorer leur conscience de la situation. / This study is based on two observations in the airway field: (i) the design of automated systems - particularly of the flight management system - is currently based on a techno-centered point of view that doesn’t take into account the user point of view; (ii) the flight management system is a complex system resulting in a long time of training and in a difficulty in both the knowledge and the access to the existing functions. This study aims to provide design recommendations for a new flight management system interface from the point of view of the pilots. In order to do this, two studies were carried out with the objective to produce a cognitive task analysis, and more particularly a cognitive task analysis of the navigation task (which is the task for which the system was initially created). Interviews were thus conducted with pilots with different experiences. The results of these two first studies provide information on the informational needs of the pilots, on the task requirements as well as on their impacts on the situation awareness of the pilots. Following these results, design recommendations for a new flight management system interface were produced in order to answer to the informational needs of the pilots and thus to improve their situation awareness. These recommendations were tested during a third study. The results show that the decrease of the attention dissociation’s effect as well as the consistency of the information contextualization of the pilot activity improves the situation awareness.