Learning Strategies In A Task Based Learning Education Essay

Learning Strategies In A Task Based Learning Education Essay Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) as one of the ways of implementing a Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach is a favorite method employed by English teachers in Asia; (Nunan, 2003) claimed that most Asian countries surveyed (Mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam) subscribe to the principles of CLT, and in a number of them, TBLT (the latest realization of CLT) is the central pillar of government rhetoric. Task is basically defined as a goal-oriented classroom activity (Ellis, 2003; Nunan, 2006; Oxford, 2006; Prabhu, 1987; Willis, 1998). It requires learners use of target language that is focused more on the conveying of meaning rather than on the practice of form (Ellis, 2003; Nunan, 2006; Skehan, 1998). Oxford (2006) completes the definition of tasks as behavioral classroom instructions that are externally imposed either on a person or a group. There are two basic reasons to select TBL as an English teaching and learning approach. The first reason is the desire for a meaning-focused approach that reflects real life language use (Leaver Willis, 2004). Language use needs to be transferred from real world activities into classroom activities, and this can be done through TBL. Another reason for selecting TBL is that task based interactions stimulate natural acquisition processes (Prabhu, 1987). A number of studies reveal the effectiveness of TBL in enhancing students language proficiency, especially their oral communication skills (eg., Ahmed, 1996; Lochana Deb, 2006). It is official policy that the teaching and learning process of English as a foreign language at the Business Administration Department of the State Polytechnic of Malang is through a Task-Based Learning (TBL) approach. TBL has been adopted by the Business Administration department of the State Polytechnic of Malang because, as the latest realization of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach, TBL is an implementation of the overarching Competency-Based curriculum the department employs. The selection of English teaching topics in this department is initiated with a needs analysis; the department regularly visits companies to survey employers expectation of their future employees skills. Most companies, especially the foreign companies, expect that their future employees possess adequate English oral communication skills as the first priority. Thus, the first goal of the teaching of English as a foreign language at this department is toward students adequate oral communica tion proficiency. In this study, I define a task as a classroom activity that is focused on meaning rather than on form and that requires the learners to achieve observable outcomes by employing English as the target language for oral communication skills as used in real life. Appendix 1 is an example of TBL activity to develop the required skills. The combination of needs analysis and appropriate TBL activities would seem to be the most effective way to develop the required skills. The implementation of Task-Based Learning has unfortunately had limited success to date. Most students graduating from the Business Administration department do not possess adequate oral communication skills. This problem is common among Indonesian tertiary education institutions, especially in the non-English departments. With my informal observation of teaching in this non-English department, this lack of success is in some part due to teachers limited familiarity with suitable and appropriate implementation of Task-Based Learning. Measures need to be taken to improve the quality of the implementation of the TBL and this can be done through appropriately manipulating task characteristics and conditions. However, manipulating task characteristics and conditions alone does not guarantee the meeting of a pedagogic outcome; attention also needs to be directed to the learners as the participants of the tasks. Learners attention and their own learning needs contribute to their efforts to gain task outcomes (Murphy, 2003). The more effort students make to reach the outcome, the better the result of the learning will be. Their strategies to accomplish the tasks largely determine their success in attaining the pedagogic goal. Learning strategies are personal efforts employed by learners to complete tasks , and students of different learning styles and different cultural background may employ different strategies to learn to communicate in a foreign language (Lam, 2007). Furthermore, appropriate employment of learning strategies plays an imperative role in promoting students self-confidence regarding the development of their communicative competence (Oxford, 1990). Successful learners are believed to effectively employ appropriate learning strategies. Regarding the teachability feature of learning strategies, a number of researchers (Griffiths Parr, 2001; Oxford, 1990, 1996) argue that learning strategies are relatively easy to teach and modify. Students can be trained to be aware of and more conscious of learning strategy use and more proficient at employing appropriate strategies. Task requirements and teachers expectations that are expressed through classroom instructional methods also shape students learning strategy choice. With the assumption that a task-based learning approach will help students in developing their communication skills and that the implementation of this approach will result in students use of effective learning strategies which in turn will elevate students success in developing their communication skills, I am interested in conducting a collaborative action research case study to produce an effective task-based learning program which aims to develop students verbal communication skills and to explore the impact of task-based learning on students employment of learning strategies. Purpose of the Study The prime concern of this study is to analyse non-English department students learning strategies in a task-based learning approach which focuses on their oral communication skills. Research Questions The aforementioned purpose of the study leads to the formulation of research questions as follow: What learning strategies do students with a range of oral proficiency levels employ during the implementation of a task-based learning approach? Do these learning strategies change during a TBL program? What are the students and teachers perception of the impact of TBL on the employment of learning strategies? Delimitation of the Study As reflected by the needs analysis conducted with prospective employers, the first required skills to be possessed by graduates of the Business Administration department of the State Polytechnic of Malang are their oral communication skills. Academically, the TBL program is designed to develop students oral communication skills. In accordance with this focus, my intention to explore students use of learning strategies is focused on the students employment of oral communication learning strategies. Methodology This research will be informed by a qualitative research paradigm and involve an action research case study. It is an action research approach in which I will work collaboratively with one of the English teachers to improve the quality of the EFL teaching and learning process in this vocational higher education institution in Indonesia which is using a TBL program. During the implementation of the TBL, I will explore students employment of learning strategies as a bounded system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information (Creswell, 2007). Regarding the multiple sources of information, I will use some different instruments of data collection namely questionnaire, one on one interviews, focus group discussions, and document reviews (students scores of their oral communication skills which is always officially conducted by the teacher every semester, students learning journals, and teachers reflective journals). The research participants will be nine second year students of the Business Administration department of the State Polytechnic of Malang. These students are within a range of oral communication skills levels: three students are of the high rank, three are average, and the last three are of low rank. The determination of the students levels is based on their test scores (final semester scores). Because the first goal of teaching English in this department is developing oral communication skills, then, their final test scores are to measure their oral communication skills. Based on their scores, students who belong to the high rank, middle rank and low rank will be invited to be recruited as the participants of the study. Because this study, in one part, will be a collaborative action research, the class teacher will also be a participant in the study. The Methods of the study will include: Questionnaire (Oral Communication Strategy Inventory/OCSI), adopted from Nakatani (2006). For detail description of the strategies inventory please refer to appendix 2. Students learning journals (One entry per week) Teachers reflective journal (One entry per two weeks) Focus group discussion (see appendix 3 for the interview guide) One on one interviews (one to expand on students responses on the OCSI questionnaire, one for an interview with the teacher, and one interview for the Stimulated Recall) Direct observations of both students classroom activities and of videotaped students classroom activities. For these observations, checklist and field notes will be used. The observation checklist is presented in Appendix 4. The data collection process will be conducted following three stages: Stage One: Preliminary data collection Indication of students existing language levels (the oral communication proficiency levels). This procedure will be conducted following the official testing method as usually implemented by the institution. The oral production test rating scale including its description is attached. The result of this test will determine the participants whom I will invite to participate in my study. The first three students of the high, three of the average, and the last three of the low rank groups to volunteer will be recruited as the participants of my study. Completion of OCSI questionnaire (Oral Communication Strategy Inventory) which is adapted from Nakatani (2006). This inventory will be translated into Bahasa Indonesia in order to gain true response from the participants without foreign language difficulties that may intervene. This procedure will function to determine the existing language learning strategies that students employ. One -on- One interview This one -on- one interview will assist me to expand on the questionnaire data to gain deeper information from the participants regarding their use of learning strategies. The interview will also be conducted in Bahasa Indonesia Stage Two: During Data Collection Students learning journal (one entry per week, in Bahasa Indonesia) In this learning journal participants are expected to respond to the following questions: What strategy did you use in accomplishing the task? Why did you employ this strategy? Name the strategy and explain how (the context) in which you used the strategy. Classroom activities videotaping There will be classroom activities videotaping once per week with duration of 90 minutes per lesson. This will be conducted for 6 weeks. Stage Three: Final Data Collection Direct observation of classroom activities Redo of questionnaire completion (Oral Communication Strategies Inventory/OCSI) Videotaped pair work activities for use in the stimulated recall interview Final interview on the use of learning strategies as the extension of the OCSI questionnaire completion and Stimulated Recall (pair interview) Official administration of final test on oral communication using the same test administered in the initial process of data collection. Additional data will be collected through the collaborative relationship with the class teacher. Data collection will be in the following stages: Stage One: an interview in which the teacher is asked to explain his understanding of TBL and student learning strategies. Stage Two: a reflective journal Stage Three: a final interview in which the teacher is asked to revisit his understanding of TBL and learning strategies and to reflect on his perception of the impact of the above on the students language skills Details of data collection activities are as put in the data collection calendar in appendix 5. Data analysis approach The data analysis of this study will begin during the data collection process. To analyse qualitative data, it is preferred to do it simultaneously with data collection (eg. Merriam, 2009). The analysis will be focused on students employment of learning strategies during the accomplishment of TBL. This learning strategy exploration is the main tool to analyse the data. The analysis will be based on the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI) developed by Nakatani (2006) which sees learning strategies as conscious cognitive behaviours with two main categories namely strategies for coping with speaking problems and strategies for coping with listening problems. The speaking strategies are composed of 8 factors while the listening strategies consist of 7 factors. I will also analyse students employment of learning strategies based on their oral communication levels: students of high rank, of middle rank, and of low rank. Appendix 6 shows the diagram of main framework of the data analysis. Since this study involves more than one subject, the data analysis will be within-case analysis followed with across-case analysis. To answer the second research question, I will analyse the data chronologically from the beginning of the semester until the end of the semester. There will be three periods of chronological analysis with one period covering five-week implementation of TBL. This is to analyse the change of learning strategy use. Data on students and the teachers perceptions of the impact of TBL on the development of learning strategies will answer the third research question. This may be an exploration of differences between students and the teachers perceptions. There may also be an analysis of differences in the teachers perceptions before the implementation of TBL and after the implementation of TBL. In general, the data analysis will follow these steps: Identifying units. This unit is a potential answer or part of an answer to the research questions. To answer the first research question, I will analyse students strategies for coping with speaking problems and strategies for coping with listening problems. Secondly, there will be units of analysis of individual students, a group of students with the same level of oral communication skills, and students of across levels of oral communication skills. Third, I will conduct a chronological analysis of the students learning strategies development/changes of every-five-week period of TBL implementation. Categorizing the units. This will be conducted through classifying units based on the recurring regularities of the data. Included in this stage is sorting or reducing redundant data and making a concrete description of observable data. The identified data of students use of learning strategies in the implementation of TBL will be described in detail. Interpreting the data. At this stage the categorized data will be interpreted and referred back to the theory. It is a process of making inferences or generating theory. I will refer back to the learning strategies theories (for example, Cohen Macaro, 2007; McDonough, 1995; OMalley Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990) including communication strategies theories (for example, Bialystok, 1990).

The importance of Effective Communication in Health-Care Essay

Language barriers have been one of the identified causes of many health problems, including timely and appropriate care, exacerbating existing conditions, and precipitating new ones. In addition to culturally appropriate education, interpreting is one of the approaches commonly used to help bridge the language gap for patients and practitioners. Interpreters are bilingual individuals that provide simultaneous interpretation between patients and medical care providers who do not share a common language (Finke, Light, & Kitko, 2008). This finding suggests that a good relationship is essential for high-quality patient care. (Finke et al., 2008) use qualitative evidence from interviews with medical interpreters, and argue that an interdisciplinary team is oriented in just one direction to care for patients, and bring them to their ultimate level of functioning. Certainly, all of the observations provided by this journal reaffirmed how understanding the basic principles of communicati on should be a paramount skill of any nurse. However, many barriers can disrupt therapeutic communication, and comprehensive assessment is necessary in order to determine the culture, religion, education background, and socioeconomic status of the patient (Finke et al., 2008) Patient centered communication empower nurses with the necessary skills to identify what patients are experiencing and place them in a better position to be empathetic. Meanwhile, creating a better health care experience for the patient and a more gratifying and meaningful career for the nurse (Finke et al., 2008). It is also more likely to effectively encourage patients to be active partners in planning and managing their own care. It is significant for medical care provider... ...5. LaValley, D (2008) Physician- Nurse Collaboration and patient safety. Crico RMF Vol. 26/No. 2 Lee Flicek Cassandra (2012) Communication: A Dynamic Between Nurses and Physicians. Vol. 21/No. 6 McCaffrey, R.G., Hayes, R., Stuart, W., Cassell, A., Farrell, C. & Miller-Reyes C. 2010. A Program to Improve Communication and Collaboration Between Nurses and Medical Residents. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing  · Vol 41, No 4. Retrieve from: http://content2.learntoday.info/ Patak, L., Wilson-Stronks, A., Costello, J., Keleinpell, R. M., Henneman, E. A., Pearson, C. & Happ, M. B. (2009). Improving Patient-Provider Communication. A Call to Action. Volume 39, Number 9, pp 372-376. Williams, M. V., Davis, T., Parker, R. M., & Weiss, B. D. (2002). The role of health literacy in patient-physician communication. FAMILY MEDICINE-KANSAS CITY-, 34(5), 383-389.

Case of Genie Essay

1.Describe the case of Genie. What happened to her? Why is this case important? Genie was left in extreme isolation. She was kept in a back bedroom,tied to a toilet. She received little stimulation of any kind and was fed baby food.She was given no visual or other sensory stimulation.This case shows that infancy and childhood are critical times for brain development. 2.What have scientists learned about the way that the brain develops in children? Describe how this development happens. They have learned that there are critical periods for brain development. They discovered that parents fill a vital role in the development of their child’s brain through their interactions with the child.Parents and caregivers must provide proper stimulation to help develop connections. Scientists believed that children’s brains were predetermined to a great extent in terms of how they would develop. However, scientists now know that an infant’s experiences help determine how connections are formed and which pathways will develop in the brain. Thus, rather than being predetermined, an infant’s brain is a work in progress, influenced not only by his or her genetics, but also the surrounding world. 3.Describe how speech generating devices work. Explain the importance of augmentive communication. Speech generating devices are electronic devices that help individuals communicate verbally. Augmentive communication is important because it helps individuals produce or comprehend written or spoken language.These communication devices can be important tools to help children with speech difficulties communicate with parents, teachers, friends, and others in their lives Critical Thinking Questions 1.What do scientists mean when they say that there are critical periods for brain development? Why are these periods important? When scientist say that there are critical periods for brain development they  mean that if a child misses that period they’ll be noticeably different from others in the same age group. These periods are important because they’ll need them all throughout life.

The eNotes Blog The Good, the Bad, and the Gross Dark Origins of Our Favorite FairyTales

The Good, the Bad, and the Gross Dark Origins of Our Favorite FairyTales Were all familiar with at least some aspects of most fairy tales. After all, who hasnt seen a Disney movie complete with singing princesses and their trusty dancing spoons? To some, these stories are perfection and you dont mess with perfection. But alas, the original creators of these beloved tales werent thinking about singing teacups and whistling puppies.  No, these writers were a bit more, shall I say, Grim(m)? Rapunzel To start on the relatively tame side, we have the story of Rapunzel, the long-haired beauty held captive in a tower by a wicked witch, whos eventually  saved by a handsome prince. The original tale doesnt start all too differently except that  she isnt rescued the first time the prince comes by- in fact, the prince comes by a lot, and  ends up getting our girl pregnant (he doesnt rescue her though- shes fine up there, captive in her tower). At a certain point, as many of you know, it becomes difficult to hide a pregnancy. The witch, being of sound mind and good vision, realizes that a man must have been stopping by the castle and flies into a rage that culminates in chopping off Rapunzels hair (something of a scalping, actually) and banishing her to wander the wilderness  forever. But thats not all! Not satisfied with simple banishment, the witch plants a trap, throwing Rapunzels stolen hair over the balcony when the prince comes a-knockin. As soon as the  prince reaches the top of the tower, the witch pushes him back out the window, where after falling a great distance, he manages to survive, but has his eyeballs pricked out by rose bushes. Romantic! The Pied Piper Long ago, a town called Hamelin had a rat problem- a really big rat problem (the rats themselves may not have been big, but there were a lot of them). Being a responsible man, the towns mayor decided the rats needed to go,  and called upon the Pied Piper to lure the rats out of Hamelin with his pipe. The Piper says okey dokey and charms the rats out of the town and into a nearby river to drown. Now that was all well and good, but  for reasons unbeknownst to us, the mayor refused to pay the Piper as much money as he had originally promised. Understandably, the Pied Piper is upset by being stiffed of his fee. Not understandably, the Piper decides to exact his revenge by luring the children of Hamelin into the river and drowning them as he did the rats. On a historical note, it is believed that this story was written in an attempt to explain why so many children in this region went missing with great frequency. While its doubtful that children were actually lured to their deaths by a rat-charmer, the fact remains that there were a lot of disappearing children and thats concerning in and of itself. Well get to infanticide a little later. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves We all know Snow White, the beautiful stepdaughter to the kings jealous new wife, ends up banished to the forest to be killed. Well,  according to canon, the jealous stepmother was actually Snows birth mother, which is somehow a little creepier. Also  creepy: not only was the huntsman sent to abandon Snow in the woods  but he was also supposed to kill her, extract her liver and lungs, and bring the organs home for her mothers dinner. Nothing like a little cannibalism among family. Fast forward to the bit with the poisoned apple putting Snow White to sleep. Originally  the apple wasnt meant to  promote beauty rest, but rather a case of dead-ness. Fortunately for Snow White, she had a little magic and a lot of luck on her side. A prince miraculously discovered the beautiful girl and came to her aid. When  attempting to lift the girl, he did an  accidental Heimlich Maneuver and dislodged the apple. Somehow, in spite of being dead to the world for some time, Snow began breathing again and fell in love with her rescuer, immediately agreeing to marry him (does anyone else have problems getting dates?). At the wedding, the evil queen arrives, not realizing who it is that her prince is marrying (ignore the hints of incest). At the wedding, the wicked wench is forced into a pair of shoes that had been cooking over a fire and is made  to dance in the burning shoes until she literally drops dead. Cinderella The beginning of this tale is well known, save  for the fact  that instead of glass, the famous shoe was actually made of gold.  Where the story gets a little tricky is when it comes to the trying on of the gold/glass slipper. Of course, the prince searches the kingdom and doesnt find the proper foot for the slipper. Eventually he comes to Cinderellas house. Cinderella is pushed behind her stepsisters in their dash to try on the shoes. To understand the motive behind  their coming actions one has to understand  that since the prince has already been to every other house in the kingdom, the stepsisters have figured out that the shoe somehow belongs to Cinderella (they know that neither of them was dancing in slippers of gold/glass). And since they also know that their stepsister has smaller feet than they, the sisters decide to do something drastic.  They decide to cut up their feet- the oldest sister chops off her toes and the younger stepsister slices off her heels. While the shoes do end up fitting,  the dripping blood somehow tips off the prince that these are not actually the feet hes looking for. Eventually, the prince learns of Cinderella and has her try on the shoes, which of course fit perfectly. To end the tale, the prince marries Cinderella and the stepsisters are left with their dismembered feet and probably terrible balance. To add insult to injury, Cinderellas pet doves dive-bomb the stepsisters and peck out their eyes during Cinderellas wedding ceremony. Sleeping Beauty Like all fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty is a little messed up from the get-go. A  wicked witch puts a baby girl to essentially an  eternal sleep on her sixteenth birthday (I say eternal because shes doomed to sleep until her true loves kiss, but no one can  really fall in love with you when youre unconscious).  This was done all because she didnt get invited to this kids birthday party- and that could be because the king and queen were worried that exactly this sort of thing would happen. But I digress. I will give the newer version some credit for  leaving out the, for lack of a gentler term, sexual assault. In the first version of Sleeping Beauty, our heroine is alone and  asleep in a random room in the  castle (in this version, she isnt the princess, but the  daughter of a nobleman). During some wandering of the castle (we assume),  the king found her. When he  found he could not  wake the girl, he decided to have sex with her, and possibly a few times- Beauty gave  birth to two children while still asleep. In the end,  Beauty is only woken due to random circumstance; one of her children sucked  on her finger and inadvertently removed the magic splinter that was keeping her asleep. To his credit, the King was really happy when Sleeping Beauty awoke from her nap and decided he wanted to be with her. Of course, being married in the days before legal divorce made it difficult for him to be with Beauty, so he went ahead and boiled his wife to death. In all fairness though, his wife did apparently try to cook his illegitimate children for dinner a couple times without his knowledge, so  maybe  she had it coming. Hansel and Gretel The earliest hints of this tale start to appear  around the beginning of the Middle Ages and star not only an evil witch, but also her husband, the Devil. Like in many versions of the story, little Hansel and his sister Gretel are led into the forest to be abandoned by their parents. In this version, however, instead of finding a house of candy, they were lured into a house by a woman with promises of food and a warm place to sleep (stranger danger!). It all went  downhill from there when it quickly became apparent that there were no beds  for the kiddos to sleep on, but cages to keep them in while they fattened for the witchs husband (again, the Devil). It  seems that the Devil preferred his meat  raw, so when it came time to make the children into a meal, instead of cooking Hansel and Gretel, the witch instead planned to tie them to a sawhorse and bleed them to death. Nice. Gretel did not  know  how to climb aboard the sawhorse, so  when the witch attempted to demonstrate, she and Hansel tied the witch  down and slit her throat. During their escape from  the house, they were  chased by the Devil but thwarted his effort by crossing the river, because apparently the Prince  of Darkness cant  swim and forgot his floaties.

Qualitative Analysis essays

Qualitative Analysis essays Qualitative analysis is used in the determination of the identity of a substance. It is different from quantitative analysis, which deals with the determination of the amount of a substance. In this experiment, qualitative analysis techniques are used to determine whether or not a sample contains a certain ion. When using this method, an unknown and a reactant are mixed. The result of the reaction leads to a conclusion about the presence or absence of certain ions in the unknown. Many ions react in similar ways, and although the addition of one reagent to an unknown may not identify the ion, it limits the possibilities as to what the ion could be. A sequence of reactions used to analyze a sample is called a scheme, and it usually requires a large number of reagents and separation steps. For this experiment, the unknown may contain anywhere from 2 to all of the following cations and anions: The following reagents are used to identify the ions: .1M Ba(NO3)2 (labeled as .1M Ba2+) The first four are used to identify the cations, and the last two, used in conjunction with the first four, are used to identify the anions. The identification of the ions is mainly based on solubilities. This means that something must be known about the solubility characteristics of the different ions in the presence of the available reagents. The point of the first part of the experiment is to learn which reagents cause the ions to form precipitates, and which reagents dissolve the precipitates formed by the ions. This information is used to make the flow charts for the identification on the unknown ions. For example, it is important to know that a certain reagent will dissolve the precipitate formed by one ion, while it will not dissolve the precipitate formed by another ion. This can be used to distinguish between two different precipitates present in a solution, or to confirm which ion formed the precipitate and therefore was pr...

The Value and Importance of Training Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Value and Importance of Training - Essay Example They employ 2.2 million associates worldwide. With their ‘Every Day Low Cost’ strategy Wal-Mart has been able to become leaders in the retail sector. The company recognizes the contribution of its associates (Wal-Mart refers to its employees as associates) in the success of the company. The company since beginning believed in ‘bringing people up through the ranks’ (MMR, 2012). Associates that were keen to further their careers at Wal-Mart are regarded as potential management trainees. To support this, Wal-Mart had a well-established management training program and in the 1980s an increasing number of associated enrolled for the accelerated store management candidate program. Growth of Wal-Mart was so rapid that they had to go in for college recruitments in addition to its internal management identification and training program. Wal-Mart also has a reputation of high turnover of staff, which suggests that they need to motivate the staff to reduce attrition. H owever, associates need to have the knowledge and skills to serve, support and sell within their division (Wal-Mart, 2007). It is thus essential that associate learning is aligned to the business strategy of Wal-Mart. Training, for associates at Wal-Mart has to be specific to their area of responsibility. At the same time it must also prepare them for growth within the organization. Wal-Mart continually updates training and development programs and they adopted computer-based learning. However this has not been sufficient to motivate the associate to grow within the company. Wal-Mart needs to employ more effective training programs that could motivate and enhance performance of their associates. Training is fundamental in transforming the workforce but the training must start from the top and cascade down to the lower levels (Vermeulen & Crous, 2000). The best results are obtained when managers train their own people. However, for training to be effective it must be planned in a sys tematic manner. Training has to be ongoing not merely to meet the changes in technology but it also has to be relevant to the business environment in which the organization operates. In addition, training must be able to meet the future needs of the organization and should be organization-specific. Today it is no more sufficient to align training with the business strategy, especially as organizations employ young graduates. They need to fulfill graduate expectations as well (Connor & Shaw, 2008). Therefore, there has to be a shift from computer-based coaching. The efficacy of structured class-room coaching is debatable even if it is computer-based. Technology provides for alternate solutions including long-distance and e-learning approaches. The traditional programs curb creativity and do not encourage risk-taking (Cron et al, 2005). While technology is increasingly being adopted in training and development programs, it is necessary that such training is ongoing (Byers, 2005). Cons tant change in technology requires life-long learning. Change is inevitable in any business environment. Online training offers the flexibility and capacity to update the training instantly. This is not only a necessity as rapid change takes place in the business environment but it also adds to learner satisfaction. This enables the mature learners to avail of the training sessions at their convenience. Coaching activity in companies is declining which indicates that expected business benefits have

Information Goods and Information Markets Essay

Information Goods and Information Markets - Essay Example According to him, one has to experience at least some amount of an information good before deciding to buy it, because only through experience one can come to know to what extent the commodity is worth buying. According to Coiera (2000), other goods like oranges or batteries do not require these pre-use since people know that they would meet their expectations. Another major characteristic of information goods is that initial production cost of such goods is higher whereas the marginal cost of reproduction is very low. In addition, regardless of the high cost, most of the information products like music, books, sound track, web pages are highly vulnerable to re-production or copying. Another finding of the author regarding information goods is that unlike other goods or services, information is never consumed. For instance, digital information can be copied exactly whereas normal goods cannot be copied this way. Hence, the laws of supply and demand ‘do not easily apply to many information goods’. Finally, unlike other normal goods, information can be easily transmitted across communication networks in bulk at lower costs or for absolutely free of cost. Since information goods are prone to copying, producers must create some form of monopoly in order to ensure profit from producing and selling information goods. ... 117) comments, information goods will be sold for no cost if marginal cost is zero. The market involves numerous other issues as well despite the current copyright laws. Pirates have easy access to various information products illegally as there is no unanimous international regulation in this regard. As Coiera (2000) finds, if free access to information is the goal of a producer, the current feasibility is an advantage whereas if the producer intends to raise revenue from information provided, the advantage turns to be a challenge. Hence, in order for making profits from information goods, one has to create monopoly by acquiring a patent or copyright, although property theft is still likely. The tactic is termed as ‘avoidance’ which mainly involves avoiding the production of ‘information goods that must be traded in such openly competitive environments’. Coiera believes that the avoidance tactic would make considerable amount of delay for the product to rea ch pirates by when the creator would gain revenue. Another tactic which information sellers normally apply is attaching the brand identity to their products or websites so as to help customers to differentiate the original products from the pirated ones. Yet another recent trend in the market is the pay-per-view model. This tactic allows the producer to charge the customer only for particular visit or for getting access to specific information. Selling the particular product bundled with other several products is another technique used by information sellers. The logic is that only a potential buyer would be willing to buy the whole package even at higher costs. Creative pricing and marketing is another useful tactic information producers can try to enhance their revenue. To