This was a
study of the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) as job aids for the
assessment of competence, particularly in difficult and hostile
environments. The pilot application was trialled successfully within
British Rail and the concept was applied in several other industries (eg,
airline crew resource management). It pioneered the use of hand-held
devices to support supervisor/assessors in the assessment of competence in
the workplace.
British Rail was chosen
as a specific example of an organisation needing to carry out workplace
assessment in a hostile environment. The study built upon the Training
Development and Delivery Programme which re-engineered the training system
for signal and telecommunications staff in British Rail. The issue of
workplace assessment and the resources needed to implement it sensibly were
a continuing cause of concern to the Programme and the study was
driven by that need. The ‘ideal’ process and the specification for a data
collection system were derived from discussions with staff at all levels:
technicians, supervisors, those training supervisors in assessment
techniques, managers and engineers.
The Project examined a
number of possible PDA devices to determine how well they met the functional
requirements and technical specification. The Apple Newton MessagePad was
selected as the most appropriate device for the demonstration system which
was then evaluated in the workplace of West Anglia Infrastructure Support
Unit.
A workplace study was
devised to evaluate the concept of PDAs as job aids for workplace assessment
in the signal and telecommunications environment of British Rail. The study
concluded that PDAs are effective job aids for workplace assessment in this
environment and that, given the need to be certain that staff are competent
to undertake safety critical work, the cost-benefit of the approach can be
demonstrated. Where there is less emphasis on safety critical work, then the
case is less clear, unless workplace assessment in one of a portfolio of
performance support applications provided through a PDA.
