Taxonomies of Human
Performance:
The Description of
Human Tasks
by
Edwin A. Fleishman and Marilyn K. Quaintance
This
widely acclaimed book reviews issues in evaluating factors which
affect human performance. Partly for this work, the American
Psychological Association presented Dr. Edwin A. Fleishman,
the senior author, with the Distinguished Scientific Award
for the Applications of Psychology.
The
book is based on an extensive research program directed by the
first author. The book updates this work and integrates it with
recent related research. The program attempted to develop and
evaluate systems for describing and classifying tasks that could
improve predictions about human performance. Emphasis is on
a common task-descriptive language to integrate the human performance
literature and improve generalizations of research findings.
The
book brings together ideas from such diverse fields as human
learning, experimental and differential psychology, task analysis,
and human factors technology. These fields in one form or another
are concerned with the prediction of human task performance,
but there has so far been a lack of communication across these
fields. This book provides the needed integration. The effort
represents one of the few attempts to bridge the gap between
basic research on human performance and the applications of
the research to real-world problems.
The
book brings together ideas from such diverse fields as human
learning, experimental and differential psychology, task analysis,
and human factors technology. These fields in one form or another
are concerned with the prediction of human task performance,
but there has so far been a lack of communication across these
fields. This book provides the needed integration. The effort
represents one of the few attempts to bridge the gap between
basic research on human performance and the applications of
the research to real-world problems.
Editorial Reviews
A sampling of book reviews from authoritative journal publications:
-
International Personnel
Management Association Council News --"…..A monumental
approach in organizing and conceptualizing studies of human
task performance from diverse fields.. A must book for the reading
shelf in the personnel assessment library.… An enlightening
and cogent discussion of approaches to task definition and task
determinations in relation to jobs."
-
Journal of Classification
--"Improving the quality and efficiency of human performance
is perhaps the most serious challenge faced by today's business
world. Edwin Fleishman has certainly been one of the pioneers
in this area. Fleishman's research, especially his work on taxonomy
of human performance, has contributed to a great deal of our
understanding of specific skills, abilities and knowledge required
for various classes of human tasks."
-
"…An excellent
job in writing a comprehensive book on….skills and abilities
and personnel resources like selection and training.…bringing
together for the first time the most significant findings in
human performance taxonomy."
-
Human Factors Society
Bulletin --"This book is a clear, scholarly analysis from
many diverse areas and is an important approach to an enduring
problem in psychology.…presents a number of systems that may
be immediately applied. The material has considerable relevance
for human performance research, and should also prove valuable
to human factors specialists interested in developing a theoretical
basis for design decisions."
-
Journal of Occupational Psychology --"…The text is particularly
impressive as it combines a historical review and a theoretical
exposition of psychological taxonomies. …As an introduction
to the classification process underlying so much psychological
research, it is to be welcomed."