Germain Poizat

Neurobiological degeneracy and affordance perception support functional intra-individual variability of inter-limb coordination during ice climbing.

This study investigated the functional intra-individual movement variability of ice climbers differing in skill level to understand how icefall properties were used by participants as affordances to adapt inter-limb coordination patterns during performance. Seven expert climbers and seven beginners were observed as they climbed a 30 m icefall. Movement and positioning of the left and right hand ice tools, crampons and the climber’s pelvis over the first 20 m of the climb were recorded and digitized using video footage from a camera (25 Hz) located perpendicular to the plane of the icefall. Inter-limb coordination, frequency and types of action and vertical axis pelvis displacement exhibited by each climber were analysed for the first five minutes of ascent. Participant perception of climbing affordances was assessed through: (i) calculating the ratio between exploratory movements and performed actions, and (ii), identifying, by self-confrontation interviews, the perceptual variables of environmental properties, which were significant to climbers for their actions. Data revealed that experts used a wider range of upper and lower limb coordination patterns, resulting in the emergence of different types of action and fewer exploratory movements, suggesting that effective holes in the icefall provided affordances to regulate performance. In contrast, beginners displayed lower levels of functional intra-individual variability of motor organization, due to repetitive swinging of ice tools and kicking of crampons to achieve and maintain a deep anchorage, suggesting lack of perceptual attunement and calibration to environmental properties to support climbing performance.

A phenomenological approach to novice nurse anesthetists' experience during simulation-based training sessions.

Introduction The aim of this study was to present an empirical phenomonological approach to exploring the experience of novice nurse anesthetists engaged in simulation-based training sessions. This study was conducted within the technologic and methodological framework of the course-of-action theory developed by Theureau. Methods The following 3 types of data were gathered: (i) field notes, (ii) continuous video recordings of the nurses’ behaviors and communications during the simulated scenarios and debriefing sessions, and (iii) verbalization data during the posttraining interviews. The data were processed in 3 steps as follows: (i) generating a log of the simulated scenarios, (ii) reconstructing the individual course of experience of each nurse-participant and for each simulated scenario, and (iii) analyzing its typical components. Results The nurse-participants’ concerns oscillated constantly between those related to the unfolding simulated procedure and those related to the targeted work. We identified 3 types of course of experience and noted a specific effect of the simulation, which was a particular vigilance regarding potential pitfalls and “traps” and a heightened sensitivity to the artificiality of the simulated scenarios. Discussion The discussion section emphasizes the importance of double or multiple-intentionality and mimetic experience in simulation-based learning and learning in general. We also try to specify the concept of mimetic experience and its relationship to the learning process. We believe that taking into account the dynamics of lived experience during simulations enriches our understanding of what the participants are dealing with inside the simulated scenarios and thereby provide leads to enhance future training sessions. Our results also call attention to the need to distinguish the mimetic environment from the mimetic experience.

Evaluation of the Measuring Active Drag system usability: An important step for its integration into training sessions

This paper is the first stage of an iterative process aiming at the (re)design of a training device for swimming. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability of the Measuring Active Drag (MAD) system, a technical device for biomechanical evaluation and performance analysis. To do so, this study examines real activity of elite swimmers using this system. It was conducted within an activity-centred approach: the course-of-action technological research programme. Three international male swimmers volunteered to participate in the study. Two types of data were collected: (a) video recordings, and (b) verbalisations during post-protocol interviews. The data were processed in two steps: (a) reconstructing each swimmer’s course of action, and (b) comparing these courses of action. The results are presented in two stages: (a) the concerns and modalities of using, and (b) use sensations. One of the most important results was that these components changed according to the swimmer’s speed when using the MAD system. The discussion is organized in two sections: (a) usability of the MAD system, and (b) design proposals to insert MAD system into training sessions.

An Activity-Centred Approach to Work Analysis and the Design of Vocational Training Situations

This chapter presents an activity-based theoretical framework pursuing two objectives: (i) understand the social practices of work and training and (ii) design innovative vocational training methods. It is part of a research trend that has come to be known as ‘French ergonomics’. In this trend, the analysis focuses on the articulation of work prescription and real work. Work prescription encompasses the set of explicit and implicit instructions in the job specifications, as well as the constraints linked both to organising production and to management, which contributes to specifying the work objectives and the social and material conditions for their accomplishment. Real work is, of course, what the actors actually do when they work. It is a type of human activity, which is conceptualised as a holistic theoretical object that can account for the individual and collective meaning and organisation of vocational practices and their transformations. The first part of this chapter presents the approach to work and vocational training developed in our research unit. It centres on the analysis of human activity and falls within the theoretical framework of course of action, which is based on the postulate of enaction and two hypotheses concerning (i) human experience and (ii) the self-construction of activity and actors through typification and individuation. Excerpts illustrate our theoretical premises, all taken from a research corpus on work and training in a variety of work settings. In the second part, we describe the technological aspect of our research and present the notion of spaces for encouraged actions as an instrument for training interventions in connection with the hypotheses and theoretical elements mentioned above. Last, we describe the wide range of application of work analysis in the field of training.

When design of everyday things meets lifelong learning

The present article deals with how the processes of learning and development can be taken into account in the design of everyday things. The objective is to encourage designers to consider the role of appropriation in their work in order to anticipate: (1) the integration of technical tools, objects and devices into a variety of spheres of activity; and (2) the long-range transformations initiated by the use of these things. We hope that this article will encourage exchanges between designers and researchers in the field of lifelong learning, as we are firmly convinced that mutual enrichment is likely and certainly desirable between the fields of design and learning theory. We also assume that making appropriation the basis for design will encourage reforms in the design of training situations.

Conceptualising and Connecting Francophone Perspectives on Learning Through and for Work

This chapter offers an overview of the field of Francophone research on learning through work and is intended as a platform for presenting a delineation of this field. More specifically, the chapter presents a range of research traditions that have secured important places within the French-speaking research community, as illustrated in the chapters collected in the book. This overview aims at explaining the disciplinary background underlying these traditions and identifying key premises and concepts and specific research and training methods that have emerged in that particular context. The chapter also attempts to illuminate the specific conceptions of learning these traditions are built on and have contributed to promote. To achieve that outcome, three research traditions are described, in relation to their historical and cultural backgrounds, key ideas and methodological focuses. The first of these three traditions comprises what is referred to as Francophone ergonomics and the epistemology of the so-called work analysis. The historical and disciplinary origins of emergence of the Francophone tradition of ergonomics are presented, along with its central concepts, contributions to methods and applications in the field of vocational and professional training. Second, a focus is placed on the tradition of language use in relation to work, training and learning. These issues have acquired considerable visibility within Francophone research and have developed into a specific research tradition. An overview of the main research topics that have emerged within this tradition and key contributions to vocational and professional training issues is presented below. The third tradition is that referring to learning in connection with specific organisational contexts. Here, the social dimensions of learning are foregrounded and contributions from Francophone researchers are illustrated, and their alignment with other research traditions, and particularly those widely disseminated in the Anglophone world. The final section of the chapter draws together a range of ideas which have emerged beyond and across these specific research traditions, and that can be seen as having played an influencing role on the ways questions related with learning through and for work have been addressed in the Francophone world.

Improving resilience in high-risk organizations: principles for the design of innovative training situations

Purpose Safety and organizational research indicates that fostering resilience in organizations is a promising way for improving safety, albeit concrete means to implement resilience are still lacking, especially in the educational field. The purpose of this paper is to propose four principles for training design derived from past and current studies the authors conduct in high-risk organizations. Design/methodology/approach Training for resilience is considered within an enactive approach of human activity building on its properties of autonomy, structural coupling, self-organization, emergence, sensemaking, and metastability. Findings The article describes four educational design principles aiming at improving individual, collective, and organizational resilience: encourage mimetic experiences; pay attention to attention and concernedness; perturb and turn into an event; support participatory-sensemaking and collective sensemaking. Research limitations/implications The training program the authors propose may be challenging to assess. Besides, the most durable solutions to improve safety through resilience are to be found at the crossroad between organizational design and training/development policies. Future research should determine the implementability criteria which are likely to support the use of the principles the authors propose, and contribute to enrich this educational foundation. Originality/value Education and training are conceived herein as high-order means to improve safety through resilience in high-risk organizations, fostering the capacity of the operators and organization to develop efficiently and in the long run. We provide independent but complementary training principles that cannot be hierarchized, but that can be locally prioritized in organizations.

A Contextual Approach to Home Energy Management Systems Automation in Daily Practices

This short paper considers how classical concepts and approaches of cognitive ergonomics/engineering (e.g., automation, trust or control levels) could both enhance Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) design and energy efficiency, while requiring a specific reference to home and daily life practices. We rely on initial results of a research, evaluating different design principles of HEMS in real homes. Our results show that it is necessary to enhance the quality of coupling between monitoring and control possibilities not only with the characteristics of the human operators considered as natural information processing systems, but also with their everyday practices in home settings. This credits the perspectives of articulating and extending cognitive ergonomics/engineering issues to contextual approach of household activities.

Changing Interactions to Reduce Energy Consumption: Specification of a Context-Aware System Centered on the Home Occupants’ Concerns

This paper presents the specification of a context-aware system dedicated to assist home occupants in their everyday life while reducing their energy consumption. The system behavior and the interaction are built upon the definition of “situation spaces” based on a prior definition of the contexts of activity from the point of view of each actor in the home, i.e. taking into account actors’ concerns. The interaction specification appears to be a way to manage the discrepancy between users’ concerns and the system context, which can reduce errors. To develop context-aware systems that can easily be appropriated and thus potentially “invisible,” we believe it is essential to articulate choices about architecture and interaction with models of individual-collective activities built upon real-life observations.

Learning Through Interaction with Technical Objects: From the Individuality of the Technical Object to Human Individuation

We live in a world filled with material objects, and certainly, the workplace and occupational training are no exception. The purpose of this chapter is to show the value of seriously examining the presence and contributions of technical objects within the context of occupational education and training. The concern is that when objects are freed of their status as mere artefacts – that is, as things having undergone even the slightest human transforming action – and are instead granted the status of technical object, their decisive role in work in the expansiveness of activity, as an ongoing process of growth, can be more fully understood. This chapter introduces some lessons learnt from Francophone perspectives, but also presents emerging conceptions that are opened up by notions such as appropriation and individuation. It is organised into four main parts: We first review the assumptions of the enactive approach and describe how these assumptions differ from objectivist ontology. Then, we examine the concepts of mode of existence and beings of technology to then explain our conception of technical objects. Third, we address the constitutive role of artefacts in learning and development. Finally, some consequences for educational research are discussed. Through this chapter, we aim to elaborate the following: the inaptness of the subject–object dichotomy, the heuristic nature of hybridity that makes human beings ‘technical beings’, the necessity to explore seriously the beingness of technical objects, the triple individuation that characterises the transformation of human activity, the key role of technics in defining standards and training contents, the centrality of appropriation as the fundamental transformation in the activity of actors in training and the potential value of training design as technical invention. Such a wide-ranging genetic interpretation of the relationship between humans and their environment is needed to build future adult education that engages with both social and technological transformations and their appropriation in a perspective that takes into account the omnipresence of individuation.