Kelly Collins Woodford

Deal or No Deal: using games to improve student learning, retention and decision-making

Student understanding and retention can be enhanced and improved by providing alternative learning activities and environments. Education theory recognizes the value of incorporating alternative activities (games, exercises and simulations) to stimulate student interest in the educational environment, enhance transfer of knowledge and improve learned retention with meaningful repetition. In this case study, we investigate using an online version of the television game show, ‘Deal or No Deal’, to enhance student understanding and retention by playing the game to learn expected value in an introductory statistics course, and to foster development of critical thinking skills necessary to succeed in the modern business environment. Enhancing the thinking process of problem solving using repetitive games should also improve a students ability to follow non-mathematical problem-solving processes, which should improve the overall ability to process information and make logical decisions. Learning and retention are measured to evaluate the success of the students’ performance.

Utilization of needs‐based customer training

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at how customer input was used in a front‐end needs assessment to formulate a training package that covered the necessary elements of product use, and how the training material was presented in a manner best suited for the trainees and their perceived needs.Design/methodology/approach – A quasi‐experimental study was designed to compare the number of help desk calls for groups trained using the needs‐based training approach with the number of help desk calls from the most recent training groups that were trained with the standard training package.Findings – Groups trained using a training package developed around their initial perceived needs had significantly fewer help desk calls than those who received the standard training. The number of help desk calls was reduced by over 75 percent from previous training sessions.Research limitations/implications – Verification of transfer of training in other applications, with other products and other learner groups, ...

Employee performance evaluations: administering and writing them correctly in the multi‐national setting

Globally, organisations are adjusting to meet the challenges of the constantly‐changing marketplace. In the area of human resource management, many multinational organisations are focusing in making the organisation more productive, cost‐effective, and customer service oriented. Recognising that an organisation’s employees are the key to its global success, many organisations are re‐evaluating their methods of appraising and motivating employees. As a result, annual employee evaluations, which have been a staple of human resource managers in many industrialised nations for decades, have been widely criticised in recent years. This article highlights the importance of using such evaluations not only in their traditional function for employee appraisal, but also as a tool for employee motivation, as a legal defence for selection, and as part of the strategic planning process.

Perceptions of performance: do learners understand as well as they think

Purpose – Student/trainee perception of their performance can sometimes be inaccurate. This study aims to look at the accuracy of perception to actual performance in short‐term intervention style training/instruction.Design/methodology/approach – Two studies conducted using university students in problem solving exercises compared the performance of the students to their actual performance on the designated problems. Following the instructional intervention, the participants were asked to use a presented strategy in solving a target solution problem. Participants were then asked a short series of post‐study questions related to their perception of the learning outcomes. Perception accuracy was measured through analysis of scoring on the target solution problem and the corresponding answers to the post‐study questionnaire.Findings – In both studies, there was a positive relationship between the score on the target solution problem and the responses to the post‐study questionnaire.Research limitations/impli...

United States wage and hour law: an updated primer for foreign companies

In 2002, Equal Opportunities International published a United States wage and hour law “primer” for foreign companies. That primer provided a basic overview of the U.S. laws regulating the compensation of employees who are working in the United States. On August 23, 2004, one major component of that primer changed: who is exempt from the over time requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. This article explains the new Fair Pay Regulations governing which employees may be classified as “exempt” and, consequently, not paid overtime for working more than forty hours in a work week.

The best advice for sexual harassment victims in the US: don’t complain, just quit and sue

In the last three years, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 246,575 charges of workplace discrimination, of which 43,437 alleged sexual harassment. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two landmark decisions governing how U.S. courts analyze sexual harassment cases. Since those cases, U.S. courts have been faced with a new conundrum: is a constructive discharge a “tangible employment action” that gives rise to automatic employer liability? Although the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have split on the issue, the trend appears to be in favor of imposing automatic liability, effectively denying employers a defense in cases in which the alleged victim often failed to report harassing conduct. This article argues that classifying a “constructive discharge” as a “tangible employment action” will, in most circumstances, violate the Supreme Court’s admonition that “no award against a liable employer should reward a plaintiff for what her own efforts could have avoided”.