The relationship between employees’ experience of performance management and work engagement within a South African organisation

The study investigated the relationship between employees’ experience of performance management and work engagement. Participants were a convenience sample of employed adults (N=202; females=59%, middle management?=?48%, White?=?54%, tenure more than 9 years?=?48%) in an organisation in the vehicle and asset-based finance industry. They completed the Performance Management Questionnaire (PMQ) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the proportion of variance of work engagement that is explained by employees’ experience of performance management. Results revealed that only empowerment significantly predicted work engagement. These findings suggest that when employees experience performance management as empowering, they are also likely to have higher levels of work engagement.     

The Counselor Feedback Training Model: Teaching Counseling Students Feedback Skills

Giving and receiving feedback is an important counseling skill; therefore, it is crucial to focus on this skill within counselor training. This article presents the Counselor Feedback Training Model, a developmental approach designed to assist counselor educators in teaching counseling students how to give and receive feedback.     

Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

ABSTRACT

It is estimated that there have been over 4,000 articles in the literature on the subject of attentional problems, addressing its etiology, epidemiology, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. This article reviews recent and relevant literature with an eye toward functional conclusions and linkages between assessment and intervention. The article concludes by providing a problem-solving model that integrates parent or teachers' referral concerns, reasons for these concerns, assessment methods, and intervention strategies. In the end, four definitive conclusions are drawn, and the importance of multimodal strategies that collaboratively involve home, school, and community settings is emphasized.     

A randomised Monty Hall experiment: The positive effect of conditional frequency feedback

The Monty Hall dilemma (MHD) is a notorious probability problem with a counterintuitive solution. There is a strong tendency to stay with the initial choice, despite the fact that switching doubles the probability of winning. The current randomised experiment investigates whether feedback in a series of trials improves behavioural performance on the MHD and increases the level of understanding of the problem. Feedback was either conditional or non-conditional, and was given either in frequency format or in percentage format. Results show that people learn to switch most when receiving conditional feedback in frequency format. However, problem understanding does not improve as a consequence of receiving feedback. Our study confirms the dissociation between behavioural performance on the MHD, on one hand, and actual understanding of the MHD, on the other. We discuss how this dissociation can be understood.     

Are predictions based on situational judgement tests precise enough for feedback in leadership development?

In this article, Vansina's assertions expressed in his comments on my article: "Fantasies and fairy tales in groups and organizations: Bion's basic assumptions and the deep roles" (Moxnes, 1998) are refuted. Bion's possible hatred for his parents, his tendency for schizoid isolation, his abandonment of group studies, and his detached leadership style are discussed. The relationship between basic assumptions and deep roles are clarified, and some new ideas about the unconscious in groups and organizations are suggested. It is maintained that access to the unconscious is an age-old function of everyday life and that introspection of the collective unconscious is possible. A fourth basic assumption related to deep roles is proposed, and support for the existence of deep roles in psychodynamic group research is given.     

Effects on organizational context (culture and climate) from implementing a 360-degree feedback system: The case of Arcelik

The current study aims to investigate the impact of the 360-degree feedback system (DFS) on organizational context (culture and climate). This longitudinally designed study was conducted at the Arcelik Cooking Appliances Plant in Turkey with 77 white-collar workers. 360-DFS was based on relevant literature and feedback given to the employees by The Arcelik Competency Model. Results have shown that the 360-DFS has effects on organizational context (e.g., employees' perceptions regarding support and achievement culture). The results have also revealed some significant effects on the participants' perception of the communication and performance appraisal system in the organization.     

The role of prior knowledge in error correction for younger and older adults

Previous work has demonstrated that, when given feedback, younger adults are more likely to correct high-confidence errors compared with low-confidence errors, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Research examining the hypercorrection effect in both older and younger adults has demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. However, recent work suggests that error correction is largely related to prior knowledge, while confidence may primarily serve as a proxy for prior knowledge. Prior knowledge generally remains stable or increases with age; thus, the current experiment explored how both confidence and prior knowledge contributed to error correction in younger and older adults. Participants answered general knowledge questions, rated how confident they were that their response was correct, received correct answer feedback, and rated their prior knowledge of the correct response. Overall, confidence was related to error correction for younger adults, but this relationship was much smaller for older adults. However, prior knowledge was strongly related to error correction for both younger and older adults. Confidence alone played little unique role in error correction after controlling for the role of prior knowledge. These data demonstrate that prior knowledge largely predicts error correction and suggests that both older and younger adults can use their prior knowledge to effectively correct errors in memory.     

Age-related changes in deterministic learning from positive versus negative performance feedback

Feedback-based learning declines with age. Because older adults are generally biased toward positive information (“positivity effect”), learning from positive feedback may be less impaired than learning from negative outcomes. The literature documents mixed results, due possibly to variability between studies in task design. In the current series of studies, we investigated the influence of feedback valence on reinforcement learning in young and older adults. We used nonprobabilistic learning tasks, to more systematically study the effects of feedback magnitude, learning of stimulus–response (S–R) versus stimulus–outcome (S–O) associations, and working-memory capacity. In most experiments, older adults benefitted more from positive than negative feedback, but only with large feedback magnitudes. Positivity effects were pronounced for S–O learning, whereas S–R learning correlated with working-memory capacity in both age groups. These results underline the context dependence of positivity effects in learning and suggest that older adults focus on high gains when these are informative for behavior.     

Questioning implicit motor learning as instantiated by the pursuit-tracking task

The effect of concurrent visual feedback on the implicit learning of repeated segments in a task of pursuit tracking has been tested. Although this feedback makes it possible to regulate the positional error during the movement, it could also induce negative guidance effects. To test this hypothesis, a first set of participants (N?=?42) were assigned to two groups, which performed either the standard pursuit-tracking task based on the experimental paradigm of Pew (1974 Pew, R. W. 1974. Levels of analysis in motor control. Brain Research, 71: 393–400. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; group F-ST), or a task called “movement reproduction” in which the feedback was suppressed (group noF-ST). A second set of participants (N?=?26) performed in the same feedback condition groups but in a dual-task situation (F-DT and noF-DT; Experiment 2). The results appear to confirm our predictions since the participants in groups without feedback, contrary to those in groups with feedback, succeeded with practice in differentiating their performances as a function of the nature of the segments (repeated or nonrepeated) both in simple (Experiment 1) and in dual-task (Experiment 2) situations. These experiments indicate that the feedback in the pursuit-tracking task induces a guidance function potentially resulting in an easiness tracking that prevents the participants from learning the repetition.     

The distinction between tapping and circle drawing with and without tactile feedback: An examination of the sources of timing variance

An internal clock-like process has been implicated in the control of rhythmic movements performed for short (250–2,000 ms) time scales. However, in the past decade, it has been claimed that a clock-like central timing mechanism is not required for smooth cyclical movements. The distinguishing characteristic delineating clock-like (event) from non-clock-like (emergent) timing is thought to be the kinematic differences between tapping (discrete-like) and circle drawing (smooth). In the archetypal event-timed task (tapping), presence of perceptual events is confounded with the discrete kinematics of movement (table contact). Recently, it has been suggested that discrete perceptual events help participants synchronize with a metronome. However, whether discrete tactile events directly elicit event timing has yet to be determined. In the present study, we examined whether a tactile event inserted into the circle drawing timing task could elicit event timing in a self-paced (continuation) timing task. For a majority of participants, inserting an event into the circle drawing task elicited timing behaviour consistent with the idea that an internal timekeeper was employed (a correlation of circle drawing with tapping). Additionally, some participants exhibited characteristics of event timing in the typically emergently timed circle drawing task. We conclude that the use of event timing can be influenced by the insertion of perceptual events, and it also exhibits persistence over time and over tasks within certain individuals.