The Use of Job AIDS to Facilitate Accurate Visual Analysis of Graphed Within-Subject Behavioral Data
The present study compared the effects of two job aids on the behavior of visual data analysts. Nineteen participants were randomly assigned to an active job aid group, a passive job aid group, or a control group and viewed a series of 60 within-subject behavioral graphs. They were asked to determin...
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | English English |
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Florida State University
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| Online Access: | http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-2549 |
| Summary: | The present study compared the effects of two job aids on the behavior of visual data analysts. Nineteen participants were randomly assigned to an active job aid group, a passive job aid group, or a control group and viewed a series of 60 within-subject behavioral graphs. They were asked to determine whether the graphs depicted a change that was attributable to the described intervention and were instructed to talk aloud as they viewed each graph. Results indicated that participant answers agreed with the answers determined by a panel of experts for fewer than 50% of the graphs. Participants were more likely to report an intervention effect (98% of the graphs) than were the panel of experts (30% of the graphs). The job aids did not improve participant agreement with the panel of experts. The verbal protocol analysis revealed that the job aids did increase attention to important graph characteristics (i.e., trend and variability) but the participants appeared to lack the necessary repertoire to appropriately modify their decisions based on the observed data characteristics. Mean level and mean shift were the characteristics most often attend to by participants. It is argued that the results obtained have important implications for the training and credentialing of professionals employing visual data analysis, especially behavior analysts. === A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. === Summer Semester, 2003. === March 19, 2003. === Visual Data Analysis === Includes bibliographical references. === Jon S. Bailey, Professor Directing Dissertation; Bruce Thyer, Outside Committee Member; K. Anders Ericsson, Committee Member; Frank Johnson, Committee Member; Brian Loney, Committee Member. |
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