5000-4DI

WEEK 4 READINGS

Work Analysis

Another category of analysis is called work analysis. In the comedy film,  Office Space (Judge, 1999), two consultants are interviewing employees and ask each one, "So, what is it you say you do around here?" That question is a great start toward a work analysis.

Job analysis, task analysis, and content analysis are the parts of a work analysis (Rothwell et al., 2016). After a brief overview of each of these three parts of a work analysis, you will take a deeper look at task analyses in preparation for conducting your own task analysis in this week’s assignment.

Figure 14. Elements of Work Analysis.

Job Analysis. Assuming the definition that a job is a “collection of related activities, duties, or responsibilities" (p. 132), a job analysis accomplishes four tasks related to these activities: describes them; specifies the essential qualifications required to perform them at an entry-level; details the tasks while performing them; and establishes standards for assessing the performance of them.

Task Analysis. Task analysis, however, is a more specific look at a "discrete unit of work performed by an individual" (Rothwell et al., 2016, p. 139) within a particular job. You will read more about task analyses later in this introduction.

Content Analysis. A content analysis is one component of a task analysis (Rothwell et al., 2016; Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004). Content analysis identifies the facts, concepts, processes, procedures, and principles (Clark, as cited in Rothwell et al.) that must be translated into work activities through the instructional experience. By the end of a content analysis, the content and structure of the instruction have been identified.

A popular example of a task analysis is the exercise in which one individual writes out the steps to making a sandwich and another individual has to complete those steps exactly as written, even if the individual knows how to do the task or what the instructions are supposed to mean. The first person will write, “Put the peanut butter on the bread.” So, the second individual picks up the jar of peanut butter and sets the jar on the loaf of bread. While such examples are entertaining, they also offer important reminders about using precise language and breaking down every task into its fundamental components.

Analyzing a Task

As mentioned above, a task analysis is a more specific look at a discrete unit of work performed by an individual within a particular job. Task analysis often involves starting at the end state (or what you want learners to be able to do at the end) and then working backward to the first step. This approach helps to ensure that necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions are included in instruction so that learners can be successful.

While task analysis may sound tedious, it can be rewarding—and maybe even fun—to compare the steps that an expert takes to those of a novice. Think about something as simple as when you first learned to tie a shoe. You may have learned a bunny-ear rhyme. You may have had an expert stand behind you so that they could observe from your vantage point. Today? Could you describe those steps to a novice? It might be more challenging than you imagine!

One of the most challenging aspects of task analysis is the expert path. Getting the expert to verbalize steps can often be tedious, and steps can be left out. These omissions are the result of what is often called the “expert blind spot”; experts often forget what they once didn’t know, so they forget to explain basic steps a novice needs to know.

As Brown and Green (2016) summarize, Jonassen, suggests that a task analysis consists of five discrete functions:

1. Inventory tasks

2. Describe tasks

3. Select tasks

4. Sequence tasks and their components

5. Analyze tasks and content level

Essentially, you want to identify the primary duties of a job, the major tasks required to successfully fulfill each duty, and the supporting sub-tasks required to complete each major task (Rothwell et al., 2016).

There are many ways to conduct a task analysis, and one way includes labeling the major tasks by frequency of performance, level of difficulty, and criticality to the job. You can read more about these three criteria in Rothwell et al. (2016). As you analyze the tasks, you will likely analyze one or more of the following sources of information (Jackson, as cited in Rothwell et al.):

· Performers (those who do the work) include those individuals who are considered master performers, average performers, and lower performers. Analyzing performers at different levels can help you to identify the size of the performance gap.

· Non-performers, who know about the work but do not actually perform the tasks, can offer valuable perspectives on the intended results of the work that are not being achieved.

· Documents that the performers use to carry out the tasks, such as job aids or procedure manuals.

· Environmental features, similar to the learning and performance contexts you learned about last week.

Using these different sources of information, you are likely to employ one of the common approaches to conducting the task analysis: topic analysis, procedural analysis (also known as an information processing analysis), or the critical incident method (essentially interviewing). The approach you would take would depend on the type of knowledge involved. You can read more about each approach through the references provided in this week’s resources. After reading the week’s resources, return to this introduction to check your knowledge of the overall task analysis functions using the interactive below.

Access Directly

There are a few reminders. Recall that people may use different terms than you use, so remember to check with your colleagues, clients, and partners to ensure that you are using terms in similar ways to reduce misunderstanding. Also, remember that, if you are in the MSID program, you will explore learner, task, and context analyses more deeply in the next course.

References

Judge, M. (Director). (1999). Office space [Motion Picture].

Rothwell, W. J., Kazanas, H. C., Benscoter, B., King, M., & King, S. B. (2016). Mastering the instructional design process: A systematic approach (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.

Weekly Resources and Assignments

Review the resources from the Course Resources link, located in the top navigation bar, to prepare for this week’s assignments. The resources may include textbook reading assignments, journal articles, websites, links to tools or software, videos, handouts, rubrics, etc.