Browsing by Subject "Expertise"
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Item Analysing the Effects of Incentives and Model Attributes on CAD Model Creation and Alteration(2012-02-14) Diwakaran, Ram PrasadModern computer-aided design (CAD) systems have contributed significantly towards product development cycle time reduction and product quality improvement. To enhance the performance of CAD systems engineers must be able to create CAD models of conceptual designs quickly; at the same time CAD models must be easy to alter, so as to accommodate the rapid changes that the design undergoes through the lifecycle. However, there is no agreement in the way CAD models should be created to accomplish these goals. This work attempts to assess the effects of incentives on CAD model attributes during model creation and alteration; the effects of CAD model attributes on alteration are also investigated. Its aim is to derive prescriptions based on empirical evidence to improve CAD model creation and alteration efficiency. The CAD models under study are created by three sets of participants ? students from a junior level CAD course, students from a senior level CAD course and experienced engineers involved in product development activities. The participants are incentivized to create and alter CAD models of designs they are provided with. The results indicate that upon removal of incentives, engineers (both students and professionals) tend to compromise on proper modeling procedures. Experts are quicker and adhere to commonly agreed correct modeling procedures during CAD model creation and alteration than students. The results also indicate that it is beneficial for alteration to construct a model with several simple features as opposed to a few complex features and that these features be fully constrained. Maintaining the traditional feature sequence improves the perception of the model. The retention and alteration of features (as opposed to deletion) is also shown to be positively correlated with model perception ratings.Item Creating More Credible and Likable Travel Recommender Systems: The Influence of Virtual Agents on Travel Recommender System Evaluation(2011-08-08) Yoo, Kyung HyanTo help online trip planners, some online travel agencies and travel service providers have adopted travel recommender systems. Although these systems are expected to support travelers in complex decision-making processes, they are not used efficiently by travelers due to a lack of confidence in the recommendations they provide. It is important to examine factors that can influence the likelihood of recommendations to be accepted and integrated into decision-making processes. The persuasion literature suggests that people are more likely to accept recommendations from credible and likable sources. It has also been found that technologies can be more credible and likable when they give a variety of social cues that elicit social responses from their human users. Thus, it is argued that enhancing the social aspects of travel recommender systems is important to create more persuasive systems. One approach to enhancing the social presence of recommender systems is to use a virtual agent. Current travel recommender systems use various types of virtual agents. However, it is still not clear how those virtual agents are perceived by travel recommender system users and influence users' system evaluations and interactions with these systems. Consequently, this dissertation aimed to investigate the influence of virtual agents presented in travel recommender systems on system users' perceptions. Specifically, the virtual agents' anthropomorphism as well as similarity and authority cues on system users' perceptions of system credibility and liking were examined. For this purpose, two experiments were conducted. For Study 1, the impacts of anthropomorphism of the virtual agents on users' perceptions of virtual agents as well as recommender systems in terms of credibility and attractiveness/liking were examined. Anthropomorphism was manipulated with visual human appearance and voice output. Study 2 tested the influence of virtual agents? similarity and authority on travel recommender system users' perceptions of virtual agents and system credibility and attractiveness/liking. Similarity and authority of the virtual agent were tested by manipulating nonverbal cues (age and outfit) of the agent. The results showed that the characteristics of virtual agents have some influences on system users' perceptions of virtual agents as well as recommender systems. Specifically, a human-like appearance of the virtual agent is found to positively influence users' perceived attractiveness of the virtual agent while voice outputs were found to enhance users' liking of the system (Study 1). Findings also indicate that RS users' perceptions of virtual agent expertise are increased when virtual agents wear a uniform rather than a casual outfit (Study 2). In addition, system users' perceptions of the virtual agent's credibility are found to have a significant influence on users' perceived credibility and liking of the overall system, which implies an important role of virtual agents in recommender system evaluations. Further, perceived credibility and liking of recommender systems lead to favorable evaluations of the recommendations, which, in turn, increase users' intentions to travel to the recommended destination. Past travel recommender system studies have largely neglected the social role of recommender systems as advice givers. Also, it is not clear whether the specific characteristics of virtual agents presented as a part of the system interface influence system users' perceptions. This dissertation sought to close this knowledge gap. By applying classic interpersonal communication theories to human and system relationships, this dissertation expands the scope of traditional theories used in the context of studying recommender systems. Further, the results of the research presented in this dissertation provide insights for tourism marketing as well as practical implications for travel recommender system design.Item The rhetoric of expertise(2008-05) Hartelius, E. Johanna, 1979-; Cherwitz, Richard A., 1952-In American culture, reliance on expertise has become so commonplace that it is virtually impossible to avoid. It is the way we delegate the contents of our busy lives and defer authority in the interest of being efficient. Conventional wisdom defines an expert as someone who knows more about a subject or can perform better than the average person. However, expertise is not simply about one person's skills being different from another's. It is also fundamentally contingent on a struggle for ownership and legitimacy. Thus, it is subject to rhetoric. S/he who succeeds in persuading the public that s/he is an expert and that s/he is a better expert than any alternative, earns credibility, acknowledgement and power. Experts argue for the legitimacy of what they do. They articulate their experiences persuasively and always in the context of a rhetorical contest. The public ultimately validates one form of expertise over the other. To be an expert is to gain sanctioned rights to a specific area of knowledge or experience. My dissertation posits expertise as a rhetorical construct. It investigates how expertise is negotiated as a function of the rhetorical situation, its participants and constraints. Specifically, I ask: What rhetorical strategies do experts employ to compete for authority and legitimacy when they conflict with one another? Each chapter examines the rhetorical construction of expertise in a particular context--politics, history, medicine, and information. By drawing parallels between different experts from different chapters I ultimately identify a series of "unlikely allies." These are experts whose rhetorical strategies for constructing expertise trump differences of context and content. My rhetorical analysis demonstrates that, despite their apparent differences, experts have a great deal in common rhetorically. Indeed, the recurring use of the same rhetorical strategies through vastly different fields of specialization suggests that experts constitute a unique rhetorical genre.Item Shared decision-making about breast reconstruction : a decision analysis approach(2013-12) Sun, Clement Sung-Jay; Markey, Mia Kathleen; Reece, GregoryAn ongoing objective in healthcare is the development of tools to improve patient decision-making and surgical outcomes for patients with breast cancer that have undergone or plan to undergo breast reconstruction. In keeping with the bioethical concept of autonomy, these decision models are patient-oriented and expansive, covering a range of different patient decision-makers. In pursuit of these goals, this dissertation contributes to the development of a prototype shared decision support system that will guide patients with breast cancer and their physicians in making decisions about breast reconstruction. This dissertation applies principles in decision analysis to breast reconstruction decision-making. In this dissertation, we examine three important areas of decision-making: (1) the options available to decision-makers, (2) the validity of probabilistic information assessed from reconstructive surgeons, and (3) the feasibility of applying multiattribute utility theory. In addition, it discusses the influences of breast aesthetics and proposes a measure for quantifying such influences. The dissertation concludes with a fictional case study that demonstrates the integration of the findings and application of decision analysis in patient-oriented shared breast reconstruction decision-making. Through the implementation of decision analysis principles, cognitive biases and emotion may be attenuated, clearing the decision-maker’s judgment, and ostensibly leading to good decisions. While good decisions cannot guarantee good outcomes at the individual level, they can be expected to improve outcomes for patients with breast cancer as a whole. And regardless of the outcome, good decisions yield clarity of action and grant the decision-maker a measure of peace in an otherwise uncertain world.Item What does it mean to be an expert teacher? : a study of adaptive expertise among mathematics teachers(2013-05) Zùñiga, Robin Etter; Svinicki, Marilla D., 1946-Hiring, retaining, and developing quality instructors is arguably one of the most important ways of ensuring a high quality education (Hagedorn, Perrakis & Maxwell, 2006; Sprouse, Ebbers & King, 2008). However, identifying what makes a teacher an expert (i.e., someone who excels at teaching) is difficult. Indeed, Berliner (2005) argued that quality teaching is almost indescribable. Good teaching, he suggested, starts with a combination of skills -- such as modeling, motivating, and mentoring -- and the ability to produce acceptable student performance. Beyond these basic characteristics, he continued, "... a highly qualified individual, always requires keen insight and good judgment" (p. 207). But Berliner saw no way for society to measure this latter aspect of quality teaching. Recent scholarship on expertise, however, is providing new means for understanding what expertise is and how it is acquired (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Ericsson, 2006; Hatano & Inagaki, 1984). This study applies the theory of adaptive expertise to an investigation of the factors that influence the acquisition of teaching expertise among mathematics instructors. The relations among the institutional environment and instructors goal and problem-solving orientations was measured for mathematics instructors who taught Algebra I, Algebra II/Intermediate Algebra or College Algebra during the past two academic years. Algebra instructors in secondary schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions were asked to participate. This study extends the work of Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) by applying their theory of an expert career to teaching, an area in which much of the public discussion focuses on the need for more excellent performance. Structural Equation Modeling and Cluster Analyses were used to examine the effects of the reward structure of the institution, the extent to which a teacher identifies himself or herself as mastery goal oriented toward teaching and engaged in a conscious process to improve their teaching practice, and a teacher's acquisition of content and pedagogical knowledge, on a teacher's expert performance. Although the institutional reward structure and mastery goal orientation were found to have a positive effect on a teacher's engagement in continuous improvement behaviors, these behaviors were not found to have a significant impact on expert performance.Item When can it be said, “you are what you know”?: a multilevel analysis of expertise, identity, and knowledge sharing in teams(2009-08) Herndon, Benjamin David; Lewis, Kyle, 1961-; Dukerich, Janet M.Individually held knowledge is one of an organization’s most valuable assets. The extent to which an organization can leverage that asset depends on its members’ not only applying knowledge in their work, but also exchanging and transferring knowledge with others in the organization. We still know very little, however, about why some knowledge workers are more or less willing to share their specialized knowledge with others. I argue that a robust explanation can be found in the risks or opportunities that knowledge sharing poses to personal identity. Specifically, knowledge workers’ willingness to share knowledge with others can be explained by the importance they place on that component of personal identity associated with expertise (i.e., their expertise identity). I systematically explore contingency factors that might influence the effect of knowledge workers’ expertise identity on their willingness to share knowledge, including other aspects of the self, dyadic social relationships, team identification, and the organizational environment. Finally, I argue that the effects of people’s knowledge sharing will be evidenced in the learning outcomes realized by those around them. I conducted a cross-sectional survey study at a national engineering firm. The final sample included 221 members of 40 continuing teams (55% response rate). In addition to self-report data, surveys captured respondents’ round-robin peer ratings of fellow team members on multiple constructs, including a measure of individuals’ willingness to share their specialized expertise with others in terms of sharing the full range of personal techniques, reasoning, and experience that form the basis of their own mastery. I conducted analyses using multilevel modeling and social relations modeling techniques. Results supported 4 of 6 hypotheses. An individual’s willingness to share knowledge with others was higher when expertise identity was high and dyadic trust, receiver expertise, and team identification were also high. Further, people with high expertise identity were less willing to share knowledge than people with low expertise identity when dyadic trust, receiver expertise, and team identification were low. Implications of these results, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.