Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Heather R. Bailey / Much research has shown that experts possess superior memory in their field of expertise. This memory benefit has been proposed to be the result of various encoding mechanisms, such as chunking and differentiation. Another potential encoding mechanism that is associated with memory is event segmentation, which is the process by which individuals parse continuous information into meaningful, discrete units. Event Segmentation Theory proposes that segmentation is influenced by perceptual (e.g., motion) and conceptual (e.g. semantic knowledge) cues. Previous research has found evidence supporting the influence of knowledge on segmentation, specifically through the manipulation of goals and familiarity for everyday activities. To date, few studies have investigated the influence of expertise on segmentation, and questions about expertise, segmentation ability, and their impact on memory still remain. The goal of the current study was to investigate the influence of expertise on segmentation and memory ability for two different domains: basketball and Overwatch. Participants with high and low knowledge for basketball viewed and segmented basketball and Overwatch videos at coarse and fine grains, then completed memory tests. Differences in segmentation ability and memory were present between experts and novices, specifically for the basketball videos; however, segmentation only predicted memory for activities for which knowledge was lacking, for experts. Overall, this research suggests that experts’ superior memory is not due to their segmentation ability and contributes to a growing body of literature showing evidence supporting conceptual effects on segmentation.

Diese Arbeit untersucht den Einfluss der Laryngoskopietechnik (GlideScope® versus Macintosh-Spatel) und des Erfahrungsgrades der intubierenden Person (erfahren versus unerfahren) auf die während der endotrachealen Intubation spontan eingenommene Körperhaltung mittels der Methode des Rapid Entire Body Assessment. Hierzu wurden Videoaufnahmen von in der endotrachealen Intubation erfahrenen Ärzten und darin unerfahrenen Medizinstudierenden während endotrachealen Intubationen am Patientensimulator aufgenommen. Die Benutzung des GlideScope®-Videolaryngoskops war unabhängig vom Erfahrungsgrad mit einer, nach ergonomischen Gesichtspunkten, deutlich vorteilhafteren Körperhaltung und niedrigeren REBA-Aktionsschwellenwerten assoziiert. Unerfahrene Probanden nahmen im Gegensatz zu erfahrenen eine unvorteilhafte, überwiegend gebückte Körperhaltung während der endotrachealen Intubation ein, unabhängig welche der beiden Laryngoskopietechniken benutzt wurde. Aus ergonomischer Sicht sollte die Videolaryngoskopie für die endotracheale Intubation bevorzugt eingesetzt werden. / This study compares the effects of laryngoscopy technique (GlideScope versus Macintosh blade) and experience (novices versus experts) on body posture during simulated endotracheal intubation using the Rapid Entire Body Assessment postural analysis method. Novices (medical students) and experts (anaesthetists) were video-recorded performing intubation in a manikin using both devices. The use of the GlideScope® resulted in a more ergonomic body posture and lower REBA action levels irrespective of expertise. Novices showed an unfavourable and more crouched body posture during endotracheal intubation than experts irrespective of which laryngoscopy technique was used. From an ergonomic point of view, videolaryngoscopy should be the preferred technique for endotracheal intubation.

Using grounded theory methodology this study examined the acquisition and exercise of nephrology nursing expertise, seeking to answer the following questions: what constitutes expertise and how it develops in nephrology nursing; and whether expert nephrology nurses practice differently from non-expert nephrology nurses and, if so, how. Sampling consisted of 6 non-expert and 11 expert nurses from a renal unit in New South Wales, and data were obtained from participant observation of the nurses and subsequent interviews. A substantive theory was generated utilising an orchestral metaphor to explain the skills-acquisitive/exercise process. Findings revealed a three stage skills-acquisitive process: non-expert, experienced non-expert and expert. Each stage was typified by four characteristics that altered during the acquisitive process: knowledge, experience, skills and focus. The findings also identified features of the skill-acquisitive/exercise process either not reported or left implicit in previous studies, including the centrality of recognition of expertise; blurring the boundaries to expert practice; and the role of motivation, enjoyment and commitment to the acquisition of / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

As humanity is increasingly confronted by shared, complex, multi-faceted problems, experts with particular knowledge and expertise are called upon to develop solutions which can be implemented internationally. Such a role requires that experts work alongside professionals from a variety of different fields as well as creating the necessary knowledge and skills to solve the problems at hand. This thesis presents the outcomes of grounded research into the dynamics of expert work based on a case study of the scientific directors of accredited sports anti-doping laboratories. The study addressed questions about how both the directors and their stakeholders viewed the work of these scientific experts. It also investigated how these experts maintained their expertise in the rapidly changing context of doping in sport. The research design integrated the methods of case study, grounded theory and developmental work research. Qualitative data was elicited using a combination of standard qualitative research methods such as semi structured interviews, surveys and participant observation, and an adaptation of the activity theory based developmental work research methods. The results of data analysis were interpreted using the theoretical frameworks of Activity Theory, Communities of Practice and the complexity based Cynefin model of organic sensemaking. The subsequent development of a grounded theoretically informed model pointed to the existence of multiple objects for expert work and the critical role of a trusted, private, shared space for the development of individual and collective identities, the expansion and application of validated knowledge within the field and the establishment of a shared and informed base from which experts can engage with other professional groups working in the field. The model identified relationships between the volume of routine processes within a workplace and both the extent of knowledge-generating research work and the development of an awareness by experts of the benefits of greater participation with other stakeholders in the broader problem context. This international study also provided insights into the complex, evolving and emergent nature of multi-stakeholder activity and identified avenues for further research into the optimum dynamics of inter-agency working in both local and global contexts.

“Power” is a concept that has been discussed by nurse scholars and leaders within the nursing literature. The literature surrounding power concurs that power is necessary within the practice of nursing so that nurses are able to support patients and move the profession of nursing forward. There is a scarcity of research, however, regarding nurses’ perception of power within their own practices. Advanced practice nurses (APNs) are in positions in which they apply graduate education, specialized knowledge, and expertise to improve health care outcomes. Therefore, a qualitative study using an interpretive hermeneutic phenomenological approach was undertaken to discover APNs’ lived experience of power within their practices. In-depth, tape-recorded interviews were conducted with eight APNs from a large tertiary care facility. All of the participants agreed to a follow-up interview to review the summary of the study results. van Manen’s (1990) approach was used to analyze the data by subjecting the transcripts to a thematic analysis and reflective process. The overarching theme of the interviews is “building to make a difference” and the APNs’ perceived that this happened by “building on,” building with,” and “building for.” The APNs built on their knowledge and expertise, built with others in relationships and built for the capacity to make a difference. Power was a part of the everyday practices of these APNs and was described as “soft power,” a power that they shared to bring about change for the better. This shared power was reflected back on them resulting in increased power within their practices, a process described by the APNs as power creep.

Given the complexity and functionality of todays software, task-specific, system-suggested help could be beneficial for users. Although system-suggested help assists users in completing their tasks quickly, user response to unsolicited advice from their applications has been lukewarm. One such problem is lack of knowledge of system-suggested help about the users expertise with the task they are currently doing. This thesis examines the possibility of improving system-suggested help by adding knowledge about user expertise into the help system and eventually designing an expertise-sensitive help system. An expertise-sensitive help system would detect user expertise dynamically and regularly so that systems could recommend help overtly to novices, subtly to average and poor users, and not at all to experts.<p> This thesis makes several advances in this area through a series of four experiments. In the first experiment, we show that users respond differently to help interruptions depending on their expertise with a task. Having established that user response to helpful interruptions varies with expertise level, in the second experiment we create a four-level classifier of task expertise with an accuracy of 90%. To present helpful interruptions differently to novice, poor, and average users, we need to design three interrupting notifications that vary in their attentional draw. In experiment three, we investigate a number of options and choose three icons. Finally, in experiment four, we integrate the expertise model and three interrupting notifications into an expertise-sensitive system-suggested help program, and investigate the user response. Together, these four experiments show that users value helpful interruptions when their expertise with a task is low, and that an expertise-sensitive help system that presents helpful interruptions with attentional draw that matches user expertise is effective and valuable.

“Power” is a concept that has been discussed by nurse scholars and leaders within the nursing literature. The literature surrounding power concurs that power is necessary within the practice of nursing so that nurses are able to support patients and move the profession of nursing forward. There is a scarcity of research, however, regarding nurses’ perception of power within their own practices. Advanced practice nurses (APNs) are in positions in which they apply graduate education, specialized knowledge, and expertise to improve health care outcomes. Therefore, a qualitative study using an interpretive hermeneutic phenomenological approach was undertaken to discover APNs’ lived experience of power within their practices. In-depth, tape-recorded interviews were conducted with eight APNs from a large tertiary care facility. All of the participants agreed to a follow-up interview to review the summary of the study results. van Manen’s (1990) approach was used to analyze the data by subjecting the transcripts to a thematic analysis and reflective process. The overarching theme of the interviews is “building to make a difference” and the APNs’ perceived that this happened by “building on,” building with,” and “building for.” The APNs built on their knowledge and expertise, built with others in relationships and built for the capacity to make a difference. Power was a part of the everyday practices of these APNs and was described as “soft power,” a power that they shared to bring about change for the better. This shared power was reflected back on them resulting in increased power within their practices, a process described by the APNs as power creep.

Ce travail présente une étude ayant pour but de décrire le développement de l'expertise chez les superviseurs de stage en éducation préscolaire et en enseignement primaire. Trois objectifs sont poursuivis. Il s'agit (1) d'analyser l'importance accordée aux différents rôles du superviseur par des superviseurs experts en éducation préscolaire et en enseignement primaire, (2) de décrire les perceptions que ces superviseurs ont à leur propre égard concernant leurs connaissances, compétences et habiletés, et enfin (3) de décrire le développement de leur expertise. Les données de cette recherche ont été recueillies à l'aide d'un questionnaire et d'un entretien en profondeur utilisés auprès de superviseurs experts. Le questionnaire a été rempli par 40 superviseurs d'universités québécoises francophones. Cinq entretiens ont été réalisés auprès de volontaires. Les résultats relatifs à l'importance des rôles du superviseur universitaire de stage indiquent que les experts considèrent le rôle de mentor comme étant le plus important, comparativement aux rôles d'interprète et de personne ressource. Ces résultats sont en partie similaires à ceux de Enz, Freeman et Wallin (1996). Par rapport à ces mêmes rôles, les résultats montrent, de plus, que les superviseurs estiment avoir augmenté leur niveau de compétences et de connaissances au cours de leur carrière comme superviseur. Ils estiment que leurs forces se situent dans les aspects pratiques, ainsi que dans les aspects plus personnels tels que des qualités liées à leur personnalité. Enfin, la recherche montre que l'expertise des superviseurs se développe grâce à leur intérêt pour ce rôle, à leur capacité d'analyse personnelle et réflexive, aux nombreuses situations problématiques qu'ils ont à résoudre, aux échanges qu'ils ont avec des personnes de leur entourage en milieu de travail et aux diverses formations et perfectionnements qu'ils suivent, tout cela sans oublier leur vie personnelle qui amène son lot d'expériences humaines. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Expertise, Superviseur de stage, Enseignement, Rôles.

Drawing from a still-life is a complex visuomotor task. Nevertheless, experts depict three-dimensional subjects convincingly with two-dimensional images. Drawing research has previously been limited by its general dependence on qualitative assessment of drawings by human critics and on retrospective self-report of expertise by drawers. Accuracy measures cannot hope to encompass all the properties of “goodness” in a drawing but this thesis will show that they are consistent with the expertise of the drawers and with the quality ratings of human critics, they are robust enough to support analysis of ecologically valid drawing tasks from complex three-dimensional stimuli, and they are sensitive enough to study global and local properties of drawings. Drawing expertise may depend to some extent on more accurate internal models of 3D space. To explore this possibility we had adults with a range of drawing experience draw a still life. We measured the angles at intersecting edges in the drawings to calculate each person's mean percentage magnitude error across angles in the still life. This gave a continuous objective measure of drawing accuracy which correlated well with years of art experience. Participants also made perceptual judgements of still lifes, both from direct observation and from an imagined side view. A conventional mental rotation task failed to differentiate drawing expertise. However, those who drew angles more accurately were also significantly better judges of slant, i.e., the pitch of edges in the still life. Those with the most drawing experience were significantly better judges of spatial extent, i.e., which landmarks were leftmost, rightmost, nearest, farthest etc.. The ability to visualize in three dimensions the orientation and relationships of components of a still life is related to drawing accuracy and expertise. In our second study, we set out to extend our understanding of drawing accuracy and to develop measures that would support more complex research questions about both drawing and visual perception. We developed and applied novel objective geometric measures of accuracy to analyze a perspective drawing task. We measured the deformation of shapes in drawings relative to the ground truth of a reference photograph and validated these measures by showing that they discriminate appropriately between experts and novices. On all measures—orientation, proportionality, scale and position of shapes—experts outperformed novices. However, error is not uniform across the image. Participants were better at capturing the proportions and positions of objects (the “positive space”) than of the spaces between those objects (the “negative space”) and worse at orienting those objects than shapes in the negative space, but scale error did not differ significantly between positive and negative space. We have demonstrated that objective geometric measures of drawing accuracy are consistent with expertise and that they can be applied to new levels of analysis, not merely to support the conventional wisdom of art educators but to develop new, evidence-based means of training this fundamental skill. Most or all prior research into drawing was based on human ratings of drawing quality, but we cannot take for granted that the “goodness” of a drawing is related to its accuracy. In order to determine whether our objective measures of accuracy are consistent with drawing quality, we invited more than one hundred participants to grade the quality of all of the drawings we had collected and measured. We showed participants photographs of the still lifes on which the drawings were based and asked them to grade the quality of each drawing on a scale from 1 (“Poor”) to 10 (“Excellent”). People's quality ratings were consistent with one another. People without drawing experience rated drawings slightly more highly than the drawing experts did, but the ratings of both groups correlated well. As we predicted, the more drawing experience the artist had, the more highly rated the drawing was, and the more accurate the drawing was, the more highly rated it was. Furthermore, scaling error (but not proportionality, orientation or position) also predicted drawing quality. In perspective drawing, accuracy—as measured by angle error or polygon error—is related to drawing quality. If drawing practice strengthens an artist's model of 3D space, we would expect the three-dimensionality of drawings to be disrupted by damage to the dorsal stream or the connection between the dorsal and ventral streams. A former illustrator and animator, DM, who had suffered a right hemisphere stroke and presented with spatial neglect, performed modified versions of the angle judgement, spatial judgement and indirect drawing tasks of our second study. Despite his previous experience, he showed weaknesses in his mental model of 3D space, weaknesses that were not evident in his drawings before the stroke. Taken together, the thesis has developed and validated two objective measures of drawing accuracy that both capture expert/novice differences well and provide superior measures when contrasted with self-reported expertise. The performance of a single patient with neglect highlights the potential involvement of the dorsal stream in drawing. The novel quantitative measures developed here allow for testable hypotheses concerning the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support the complex skill of drawing to be objectively measured.

Given the complexity and functionality of todays software, task-specific, system-suggested help could be beneficial for users. Although system-suggested help assists users in completing their tasks quickly, user response to unsolicited advice from their applications has been lukewarm. One such problem is lack of knowledge of system-suggested help about the users expertise with the task they are currently doing. This thesis examines the possibility of improving system-suggested help by adding knowledge about user expertise into the help system and eventually designing an expertise-sensitive help system. An expertise-sensitive help system would detect user expertise dynamically and regularly so that systems could recommend help overtly to novices, subtly to average and poor users, and not at all to experts.<p> This thesis makes several advances in this area through a series of four experiments. In the first experiment, we show that users respond differently to help interruptions depending on their expertise with a task. Having established that user response to helpful interruptions varies with expertise level, in the second experiment we create a four-level classifier of task expertise with an accuracy of 90%. To present helpful interruptions differently to novice, poor, and average users, we need to design three interrupting notifications that vary in their attentional draw. In experiment three, we investigate a number of options and choose three icons. Finally, in experiment four, we integrate the expertise model and three interrupting notifications into an expertise-sensitive system-suggested help program, and investigate the user response. Together, these four experiments show that users value helpful interruptions when their expertise with a task is low, and that an expertise-sensitive help system that presents helpful interruptions with attentional draw that matches user expertise is effective and valuable.