In 2011 the Missionary Department sponsored a development project focused on creating performance support tools for international missionary training centers (IMTCs). The purpose of the project was to determine an area where there was a gap between desired performance and actual performance for IMTC training managers and develop tools to support them in improving performance in the chosen area. The target area supported the IMTC training managers in helping part-time teachers improve their effectiveness. Two products were created to help managers work more effectively with their teachers and a third product is currently under development. The first was a teacher competency print resource that managers could use to guide their feedback and evaluations of teachers. The second was a set of standards and suggestions managers could implement to help teachers improve. The third was an electronic teacher-tracking tool that would allow managers to track the progress and goals of each teacher. The design model used was a combination of a rapid prototyping model, cascade design model, and an electronic performance support design model. It included four major iterations for the products. This paper discusses the various stages of the development process, including adjustments to the planned design model, prototypes, and finalized products.

This study evaluated the usability of two types of performance-support interfaces that were designed using informational and experiential approaches. The experiment sought to determine whether there is a relationship between usability and the informational and experiential approaches. The general population under study was undergraduate education major students from the University of Central Florida. From the general population of three educational technology instructor-led classes, 83 students were solicited to participate in the study by completing a class activity. From the general population, a total of 63 students participated in the study. By participating in the study, the students completed a task and a questionnaire. Students were predominantly English-speaking Caucasian female education majors between the ages of 19 and 20; most of them were sophomores or juniors working part time. They possessed moderately low to high computer skills and most considered themselves to have intermediate or expert Internet skills. An experimental posttest-only comparison group research design was used to test the hypotheses posited for this study. The participants were randomly assigned to either the informational interface group (X1) or the experiential interface group (X2), and the experiment was conducted electronically via a Web-based Content Management System (CMS). The observed data consisted of five outcome measures: efficiency, errors, intuitiveness, satisfaction, and student performance. Two instruments--a checklist and an online usability questionnaire--were used to measure the five dependent variables: efficiency, intuitiveness, errors, satisfaction, and student performance. The CMS was used as the vehicle to distribute and randomize the two interfaces, obtain informed consent, distribute the instructions, distribute the online questionnaire, and collect data. First, a checklist was used to assess the students' performance completing their task, which was a copyright issue request letter. The checklist was designed as a performance criterion tool for the researcher, instructor, and participants to use. The researcher and instructor constructed the checklist to grade copyright request letters and determine students' performance. The participants had the opportunity to use the checklist as a performance criterion to create the task document (copyright request letter). The checklist consisted of ten basic yet critical sections of a successful copyright request letter. Second, an online usability questionnaire was constructed based on the Purdue Usability Testing Questionnaire (PUTQ) questions to measure interface efficiency, intuitiveness, errors, and satisfaction. While these test items have been deemed important for testing the usability of a particular system, for purposes of this study, test items were modified, deleted, and added to ensure content validity. The new survey, University of Central Florida Usability Questionnaire (UCFUQ), consisting of 20 items, was implemented in a pilot study to ensure reliability and content validity. Changes to the PUTQ were modified to fulfill a blueprint. A pilot study of the instrument yielded a reliability coefficient of .9450, and the final online usability instrument yielded a reliability coefficient of .9321. This study tested two approaches to user interface design for the Electronic Performance Support (EPS) using two HTML interface templates and the information from an existing training module. There were two interventions consisting of two interface types: informational and experiential. The SPSS Graduate Pack 10.0 for Windows was used for data analysis and statistical reporting in this study. A t test was conducted to determine if a difference existed between the two interface means. ANOVA was conducted to determine if there was an interaction between the interface group means and the demographic data factored among the five dependent variables. Results of this study indicated that students at the University of Central Florida reported no differences between the two interface types. It was postulated that the informational interface would yield a higher mean score because of its implementation of HCI guidelines, conventions, and standards. However, it was concluded that the informational interface may not be a more usable interface. Users may be as inclined to use the experiential interface as the informational interface.

This study explored the design and development of an electronic performance enhancement tool that can assist a person with limited programming skills to create a variety of simple customized information management websites. In particular, this study was modeled after needs within an Instruction Technology department in which individuals were able to create pre-functional web pages with various elements such as textboxes and dropdown menus but lacked the programming skills necessary to add functionality to these web forms. Skilled programmers could add functionality to these pre-functioning web forms or create customized information management websites from scratch. However, programmers are not always available when needed. At the time of this study, there was no readily available way for persons to create customized information management websites without the services of a programmer or without needing to learn programming skills themselves. This study sought to determine what functionalities, characteristics and capabilities could be included in an electronic performance enhancement tool to assist non-programmers to create simple customized information management websites and how a tool with such functionalities, characteristics and capabilities could be designed and developed. A prototype version of such tool (named the Form And DataBase Interaction Tool or "FADBIT") was designed and developed in this study. This tool asks users who have created simple pre-functional web forms to answer a series of questions related to those webforms. Given the user's responses to these questions, this tool is able to form a metalanguage representation of the user's intentions for the web form and can translate this representation into useful programming code to add the desired functionality. The tool was successfully designed and developed using a generalized modular framework, and a Create-Adapt-Generalize model, with each module addressing one or more patterns common to web programming. The prototype tool successfully allowed non-programmers to create functional information websites for two structured evaluation projects, and achieved some level of success and encountered some difficulties with an unstructured project. Proposed modifications and extensions to the tool to address the difficulties encountered are presented. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to design, develop and evaluate an electronic performance support system (EPSS) for the crime scene investigation unit (CSI). For this purpose, a sequential explanatory strategy as a procedure of the mixed method design was used in analysis and evaluation of the EPSS. The research was composed of three main phases: analysis / design, development and implementation, and evaluation of the EPSS. In first phase composed of performance and cause analyses, the CSI Unit&rsquo / s existing information, and contributing causal performance factors based on Gilbert&rsquo / Behavior Engineering Model were explored. In performance analysis phase, official documentation of the CSI Unit was reviewed. As for cause analysis, the survey and focus group interviews were conducted to 1176 and 22 CSI officers, respectively. These data were analyzed using with both quantitative and qualitative methods to facilitate the selection of the most appropriate intervention and its components. Analyses results revealed that 14 basic influences grouped under the workplace and competency on human behavior impacted performance of the officers. Based on these results, an EPSS composed of intrinsic, extrinsic and external levels, and support components was designed and developed in the second phase. Having been implemented, the evaluation of the EPSS based on the Kirkpatrick&rsquo / Four Levels of Evaluation Model was conducted v to determine the overall impact, perceived benefits, and effectiveness of the intervention in third phase. In this phase, a survey, interviews, computer logs and a checklist were used so as to assess the accomplishment of the EPSS. While the survey and the checklist were administered to the 191 officers and 2 experts from the field, the interviews were conducted with 12 officers. Evaluation results admitted that the CSI officers&rsquo / reactions were very positive to the EPSS. While, an intrinsic support made a major contribution to their productivity, establishing standardization would be perceived as the major impact of the EPSS. Lastly, increasing identity and simplifying criminal justice system were the two main impact factors on the society that the system would influence positively.

This study outlines the strategies that were employed during the training of Grade 11 Physical Sciences teachers in the use and development of an Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS). The EPSS process involves extended individualised support for teachers through face-to-face training. A purposive sample was utilised and 22 Grade 11 Physical Sciences teachers participated in the study. Teachers’ skills and knowledge before and after the EPSS training process were measured on three measures of satisfaction (course material, the EPSS training process and the trainer’s competencies) and three measures regarding the EPSS (using an EPSS, creating a flowchart and designing an EPSS). A customer satisfaction index questionnaire and retrospective opinionnaire were used to collect data from the participants. Microsoft Excel was used to analyse data collected using the customer satisfaction index questionnaire. Furthermore a Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to analyse data collected using a retrospective opinionnaire. Significant effects were found on all six measures when comparing the skills of teachers before and after attending the EPSS training programme. The results reveal that teachers who participated in the research are satisfied with the use, design and development of an EPSS in education. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

Do you remember the first time you used an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM)? Or a pay-at-the-pump gas station? Or an airline e-ticket kiosk? How did you know what to do? Although you never received any formal instruction in how to interact with the self-service technology, you were likely able to accomplish your task (e.g., withdrawing or depositing money) as successfully as an experienced user. However, not so long ago, to accomplish that same task, you needed the direct mediation of a service professional who had been trained how to use the required complex technology. What has changed? In short, the technology is now able to compensate for the average consumer's lack of experience with the transactional system. The technology itself bridges the performance gap, allowing a novice to accomplish the same task as an experienced professional. This shift to a self-service paradigm is completely changing the dynamics of the consumer relationship with the capitalist enterprise, resulting in what is rapidly becoming the default consumer interface of the postmodern era. The recognition that the entire performance support apparatus now revolves around the end user/consumer rather than the employee represents a tectonic shift in the workforce training industry. What emerges is a homogenized consumer culture enabled by self-service technologies--a kiosk culture. No longer is the ability to interact with complex technology confined to a privileged workforce minority who has access to expensive and time-consuming training. The growth of the kiosk culture is being driven equally by business financial pressures, consumer demand for more efficient transactions, and the improved sophistication of compensatory technology that allows a novice to perform a task with the same competence as an expert. "The Kiosk Culture" examines all aspects of self-service technology and its ascendancy. Beyond the milieu of business, the kiosk culture is also infiltrating all corners of society, including medicine, athletics, and the arts, forcing us to re-examine our definitions of knowledge, skills, performance, and even humanity. The current ubiquity of self-service technology has already impacted our society and will continue to do so as we ride the rising tide of the kiosk culture.