Friday, September 28, 2007

Immersion -- Week 5

Performance Centered Design ... Objectivist or Cognitivist?



A classmate recently remarked that performance centered design (PCD) seemed very objectivist in nature. That is, in order to receive just in time support, people are many times led by the hand in the right direction for the information they need to get the job done. But, my PCD instructor presented his take on this issue - that distributed cognition is the foundation of Performance Support. From the distributed cognition view, knowledge is transmitted between individuals and cultural tools, and the relationship of these different elements (person-to-person, person-to-tool) changes the external structure to develop a "functional system". I can see where this view would fit with performance support. However if you are trying to get a person from Point A (weekly timesheet) to Point C (entering weekly timesheet into automated system) and present B (job aid to help person enter weekly time into automated system) as the stimulus to get to Point C, then isn't that purely objectivist? Or can it be both?

2 comments:

Rock Boy said...

I know it's not the same, but this stuff starts to get a little philosophical. Specifically, parts of it remind me of phenomenology... I remember taking a cognitive studies class in Goucher. I didn't do so well with it. Kudos to you for wrapping your head around this stuff. Go Kim!

Montay said...

Well ... I'm not so sure how well I'm wrapping my head around this stuff. I think my success (or lack thereof) in my Advanced Instructional Design/Constructivist Theories class will be a good barometer ... but thanks for the support RB and I appreciate you taking the time out to catch up with me! :)