Abstract
The point of departure in this dissertation was the
practical safety problem of unanticipated, unfamiliar
events and unexpected changes in the environment, the
demanding situations which the operators should take care
of in the complex socio-technical systems. The aim of
this thesis was to increase the understanding of
demanding situations and of the resources for coping with
these situations by presenting a new construct, a
conceptual model called Expert Identity (ExId) as a way
to open up new solutions to the problem of demanding
situations and by testing the model in empirical studies
on operator work. The premises of the Core-Task Analysis
(CTA) framework were adopted as a starting point:
core-task oriented working practices promote the system
efficiency (incl. safety, productivity and well-being
targets) and that should be supported. The negative
effects of stress were summarised and the possible
countermeasures related to the operators' personal
resources such as experience, expertise, sense of
control, conceptions of work and self etc. were
considered. ExId was proposed as a way to bring
emotional-energetic depth into the work analysis and to
supplement CTA-based practical methods to discover
development challenges and to contribute to the
development of complex socio-technical systems. The
potential of ExId to promote understanding of operator
work was demonstrated in the context of the six empirical
studies on operator work. Each of these studies had its
own practical objectives within the corresponding quite
broad focuses of the studies. The concluding research
questions were: 1) Are the assumptions made in ExId on
the basis of the different theories and previous studies
supported by the empirical findings? 2) Does the ExId
construct promote understanding of the operator work in
empirical studies? 3) What are the strengths and
weaknesses of the ExId construct? The layers and the
assumptions of the development of expert identity
appeared to gain evidence. The new conceptual model
worked as a part of an analysis of different kinds of
data, as a part of different methods used for different
purposes, in different work contexts. The results showed
that the operators had problems in taking care of the
core task resulting from the discrepancy between the
demands and resources (either personal or external). The
changes of work, the difficulties in reaching the real
content of work in the organisation and the limits of the
practical means of support had complicated the problem
and limited the possibilities of the development actions
within the case organisations. Personal resources seemed
to be sensitive to the changes, adaptation is taking
place, but not deeply or quickly enough. Furthermore, the
results showed several characteristics of the studied
contexts that complicated the operators' possibilities to
grow into or with the demands and to develop practices,
expertise and expert identity matching the core task.
They were: discontinuation of the work demands,
discrepancy between conceptions of work held in the other
parts of organisation, visions and the reality faced by
the operators, emphasis on the individual efforts and
situational solutions. The potential of ExId to open up
new paths to solving the problem of the demanding
situations and its ability to enable studies on practices
in the field was considered in the discussion. The
results were interpreted as promising enough to encourage
the conduction of further studies on ExId. This
dissertation proposes especially contribution to
supporting the workers in recognising the changing
demands and their possibilities for growing with them
when aiming to support human performance in complex
socio-technical systems, both in designing the systems
and solving the existing problems.
Original language | English |
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Qualification | Doctor Degree |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisors/Advisors |
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Award date | 11 Aug 2006 |
Place of Publication | Espoo |
Publisher | |
Print ISBNs | 951-38-6840-0 |
Electronic ISBNs | 951-38-6841-9 |
Publication status | Published - 2006 |
MoE publication type | G5 Doctoral dissertation (article) |
Keywords
- Core-Task-Analysis
- conceptual models
- Expert Identity model
- operators performance
- resources
- demanding situations
- stress
- controllability
- metacognitive skills
- expertice