Four criteria for evaluating the appropriateness of units of analysis for task analytic research are proposed. Meeting all four criteria and thus recommended for use in behavior analytic work is percentage correct with competent performance coded and a task analysis grid showing individual step performance. (Author/DB)

Determined whether people could obtain outcomes on a complex task that would be in line with differential goal weights corresponding to different aspects of the task. Bank lending officers were run through lender-simulation exercises. Five performance goals were weighted. Demonstrated effectiveness of goal setting with complex tasks, using group…

Suggests that technical writing theory, which views the writing process as a process of design, can be applied in the writing classroom. Presents several strategies for teaching design, including teaching editing by levels, making better assignments, and stressing organization. (MM)

Forty toddlers, 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 years of age, and 8 adults, searched for stickers that were hidden underneath two discretely different classes of objects embedded in arrays containing several classes. Study results suggest that the children appear to have been attempting to determine which kinds of choices were the wrong ones. (Author/RWB)

The author suggests that the specification of common literacy demands that are valid on the societal level, that is, which are applicable and meaningful to diverse adults living in diverse environments, is an impossible task. He further suggests that the development of a valid and uniform national curriculum for functional literacy is equally…

Five information processing models that relate memory for evidence to judgments based on the evidence are identified in the current social cognition literature: independent processing, availability, biased retrieval, biased encoding, and incongruity-biased encoding. A distinction between two types of judgment tasks is introduced and is related to…

A task analysis approach to curriculum development provides a set of guidelines or educational requirements for recreation professionals based on student needs and specific work settings. A list of specific tasks that recreation personnel should be able to perform at six distinct educational levels is offered. (DF)

Discusses three task analysis techniques utilized at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station to review training programs: analysis of (1) job positions, (2) procedures, and (3) instructional presentations. All of these include task breakdown, relationship determination, and task restructuring. (MBR)

Results of three visual sequential memory tests and a group reading test given to 19 elementary students are discussed in terms of task analysis and structuralist approaches to analysis of reading skills. Relation of visual sequential memory to other reading subskills is considered in light of current reasearch. (CMG)

We investigated unjustified assumptions made by students when proving geometric statements. Geometric statements can be presented with a diagram or without. Diagrams can be accurate or sketchy. Unjustified assumptions may originate in an accompanying diagram. We thus asked whether the way in which a statement is presented has an effect on…

Corporate and educational settings increasingly require decision-making, problem-solving and other complex cognitive skills to handle ill-structured, or heuristic, tasks, but the growing need for heuristic task expertise has outpaced the refinement of task analysis methods for heuristic expertise. The Heuristic Task Analysis (HTA) Method was…

A goal mediational model to conceptualize the effects of students' motivational beliefs on their learning strategies was modified with the three goal orientations: task, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. Questionnaires were administered to 161 Korean fifth graders (boys = 88; girls = 73) in an elementary school math class.…

The paper attempts to describe the training methods used in large industrial organizations in which the behavioral objective approach places emphasis upon what the trainee learns. (Author/AG)

To prepare job instructions, these steps are helpful: (1) make a job analysis worksheet, (2) list procedures in steps, (3) list tools, equipment, and materials needed, determine needs for (4) scientific information (5) mathematics knowledge, (6) drawing knowledge, (7) trade terms knowledge, (8) materials knowledge, and (9) safety precaution…

A detailed examination of work methods, procedures, and equipment, followed by preparation of written schedules for each custodian, can cut custodial costs without affecting the quality of cleanliness in the schools. (Author/MLF)