Individuals can expect continuous improvement in productivity as a consequence of (i) a growing stock of knowledge and experience gained by repeatedly doing the same task (first-order learning) or (ii) due to technological and training programs injected by the organization (second-order learning). Organizations have used this type of progress behavior in making managerial decisions regarding cost estimating and budgeting, production and labor scheduling, product pricing, etc. This progress was studied in productivity, product-quality and personal skills, in an experiment involving a sample of 12 subjects, who completed one project every week for ten weeks. Second-order training was provided to the subjects through the Personal Software Process, PSP, of Humphrey. A within-subject repeated measure time-series quasi-experimental design was used along with a modified G/Q/M method. It was found that on average, progress takes place at a rate of 20%, with the second-order training adding up to 13% more improvement in addition to the first-order learning. Detailed statistical methods were used to produce linear and log-linear models of high correlations, involving four variables: productivity, defect-rate, complexity and cumulative output. The motivation of the subjects did not change significantly during the experiment. It was also found that the McCabe's and Halstead's complexity metrics had a correlation of 0.80 amongst each other. However, no relationship could be found between the personal capabilities of the individuals and the progress rate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22804 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Sherdil, Khalid |
| Contributors | Madhavji, Nazim (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (School of Computer Science.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001445120, proquestno: MM05628, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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