Suchergebnisse

Introduction: One way to understand a profession is to examine the job tasks undertaken by professionals within the field. The profession of vision rehabilitation therapy is examined by finding the frequency at which 100 specific job tasks are performed on average by current vision rehabilitation therapists (VRTs). Fifty-one of the job task frequencies are compared to 1989 frequencies for changes across the last 28 years. Methods: An anonymous online survey was carried out with current and recently retired VRTs. Participants were asked to rate the frequency at which they perform 100 specific job tasks and 13 demographic questions. Results: One hundred eighty-nine practitioners completed the survey. Mean frequencies for the 100 job tasks fell between a low of 1.08 (slightly above "do not perform the task") for "writes grants for funding of agency services" and a high of 5.51 (above "perform 4 or 5 times a week") for "writes case notes and reports for documentation." Half of the 51 comparable job tasks indicated statistically significant changes in frequency across the 28-year period. Discussion: Statistically significant changes in job task frequencies occurred across job roles of teaching, case management, and professional or administrative activities, indicating that many aspects of the therapist's job have changed. Individualized teaching remains a common aspect of the job, personalizing the skills taught and the teaching methods, for the individual client. VRTs are less frequently providing consultation to medical and community organizations. Implications for practitioners: The results presented provide an understanding of current job tasks of a practicing VRT. Understanding the changing trends of job tasks may inform university personnel preparation programs to better prepare students for employment demands. Decreasing community outreach may negatively affect the visibility of blind rehabilitation services and inadvertently affect referrals for vision rehabilitation therapy services.

Abstract
This paper extends the monopsony literature by taking a task-based approach and estimating the causal effect of concentration on labour market outcomes. Using detailed employer–employee data from Norway, we find that our job task-based measure shows lower degrees of concentration than conventional industry- and occupation-based measures. Exploiting mass lay-offs as exogenous shocks to local labour demand, we show that workers who experience mass separations in more concentrated markets have substantially worse subsequent labour market outcomes than workers in less concentrated markets. Our results point to the existence of employer market power that is driven by the concentration of skill demand across firms.

Document design strategies have typically focused on either procedural text or instructional text. This study evaluates the design of yet another class of text, the nonprocedural job text. A nine-page segment of a technical text was redesigned by three separate companies, each specializing in document design. The companies were given complete freedom in redesigning the text. Evaluation was carried out by means of paper-and-pencil tests of fact comprehension and of inferential comprehension for fault isolation tasks. Both speed and accuracy were measured in these "open book" tests. None of the redesigns resulted in more accurate or faster comprehension performance. In fact, one of the redesigns was less comprehensible than the original, as measured on each test. The results are discussed in terms of "reading to do" versus "reading to learn," and in terms of the potential moderating effect of the readers' "format schema" for the traditional design.

This paper describes issues in developing a scientifically based system for relating the abilities of people required to perform jobs to the nature of the task characteristics of these jobs. Conceptual and methodological issues in classifying tasks are discussed as are the objectives of task taxonomies and criteria for their evaluation. Alternative taxonomic approaches are described. A particular approach to classifying tasks in terms of ability requirements is described in more detail and evaluated according to a number of criteria and applications. These latter include encouraging utility in job analysis, test development, setting performance standards, and classifying jobs into families.