Change 3 of Change 4,972

 Update (11/2/11): I received an email from my advisor this week informing me that there is a third extension for which I can apply. Since the Scientific Merit Review is only the precursor to the milestone I am striving to achieve, namely the approval by my mentor of my proposal, i.e. the first three chapters of my dissertation, it looks like I will at least apply for the extra extension.

With less than five weeks to my second extension deadline, I have changed my topic (!). I am no longer looking at the impact of ISO 9000 registration on instructional design. I just couldn't get it past the committee. Instead, I am now working on a Scientific Merit Review for software training methods. Here's my concept feasibility proposal:

With the explosion of online learning, an increasing number of instructional software developers are the domain specialists themselves (Boot, van Merrienboer, & Veermen, 2007), whether in higher education, corporate, or military training development. In many cases, companies use proprietary authoring system software that may or may not come with tutorials, either printed copy or online. In addition, documentation may be written by the software engineers who designed the authoring system. Often, these scaffolding tolls are unintelligible to the untrained user.

So what is the most common method of training new hires in the use of the tool of their new trade? Frequently in a corporate setting, it is a form of peer coaching where an experienced user sits alongside the novice and guides them through the initial steps of learning their new job and its tool simultaneously. While behavior modeling is usually considered the most effective method of software training (citation), it may not always bee the most efficient. However, one possible explanation for the use of this method is the project managers' desires to get as much production out of the new hire as soon as possible. Thus, they set them to work on actual development under the tutelage of a developer-mentor. Yet, one could easily argue that instead of one developer producing at full capacity while the other sits through "unproductive" training, now two developers are producing at less that full capacity for even one developer while the novice "learns the ropes."

Managers frequently view training as "lost production time." However, it may be possible to supplement the peer coaching with online tutorials that are individually prescribed, problem-oriented, and authentic--in a word, constructivist in their theoretical foundation. Combined with a pre-test/post-test to ascertain the learner's level of knowledge and understanding both before and after the training and with an Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) for scaffolding the learner's efforts, it may be possible to significantly increase the new hire's productivity in a shorter amount of time. In addition, levels of instruction can be scaled for basic, intermediate, and advanced instruction which can also be used as inservice or refresher training for more experience developers.

From a population of >500, volunteers will be given a pretest. Then, a random sample of roughly half will receive the training while the rest will go about their normal development duties. After the target sample has completed the training, both groups will execute a post-test and the results compared for correlation between facility with the authoring system and the training.