Working Minds: A Practitioner's Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis (Bradford Books)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 332 pages
• Published by: The MIT Press
• Edition: 1st Edition July 7, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0262532816
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0262532815
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Review
"Working Minds is a one-of-a-kind handbook which not only provides practical guidance for CTA but also addresses fundamental cognitive issues that support the techniques."
—Vimla Patel, Director, Laboratory of Decision Making and Cognition, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University

"Discovering the basis for expertise is a task fraught with difficulties, but Crandall, Klein, and Hoffman provide the practical guidance of experienced CTA practitioners. This book collects the resources one requirements to become expert at using new tools to support cognitive work."
—David Woods, Institute for Ergonomics, The Ohio State University

"This is probably the best guide I have read to capturing the essence of tacit knowledge in decision making. An great synthesis of the academic and the practical, and a major contribution to the field."
—Dave Snowden, Founder, Cognitive Edge

"What a gem! Finally, those who are interested in understanding how people in organizations acquire, retain, maintain, interpret, represent, and use knowledge in their jobs have a practical set of tools to follow and apply. A refreshing, welcome, and much-needed resource book. Bravo!"
—Eduardo Salas, Department of Psychology and Institute for Simulation & Training, University of Central Florida

Product Description
Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) helps researchers understand how cognitive skills and strategies make it possible for people to act effectively and get things done. CTA can yield information people need—employers faced with personnel issues, market researchers who want to understand the thought processes of consumers, trainers and others who design instructional systems, health care professionals who want to apply lessons learned from errors and accidents, systems analysts developing user specifications, and many other professionals. CTA can show what makes the workplace work—and what keeps it from working as well as it might.

Working Minds is a true handbook, offering a set of tools for doing CTA: methods for collecting data about cognitive processes and events, analyzing them, and communicating them effectively. It covers both the "why" and the "how" of CTA methods, providing examples, guidance, and stories from the authors' own experiences as CTA practitioners. Because effective use of CTA depends on some conceptual grounding in cognitive theory and research—on knowing what a cognitive perspective can offer—the book also offers an overview of current research on cognition.

The book provides detailed guidance for planning and carrying out CTA, with chapters on capturing knowledge and capturing the way people reason. It discusses studying cognition in real-world settings and the challenges of rapidly changing technology. And it describes key issues in applying CTA findings in a variety of fields. Working Minds makes the methodology of CTA accessible and the skills involved attainable.

Reader Reviews
The authors described the What, Why, When, Where and How of Cognitive Task Analysis from multiple aspects. One aspect concerns analyzing the cognitive tasks of incumbents in a situated setting. Another aspect concerns analyzing the cognitive task content of an envisioned role in a foreseen situation. Another aspect concerns analyzing the cognitive tasks of those who research cognitive task analysis methods, aids and tools. Another is analyzing the cognitive tasks involved in reflecting on and improving oneself as a practitioner of cognitive task analysis. Yet another is the challenges that must be mastered by educators of cognitive task analysis practitioners. The versatility and value of Cognitive Task Analysis was thusly demonstrated without causing the reader undue confusion. A significant, complex task well done. Working Minds brings the `intuitive' aspect of decision into focus with the `rational' aspect. This is one, very large contribution. A small disappointment was the absence of teleonomics and its relationship with cognitive task analysis. Also, perhaps a sequel will say more about principles and rules for selecting human vs. automatons during a system design activity. As computers in general and process formalization in particular encroach further into our lives and as litigation looms larger over those who cannot show that they exercised due process in their work, cognitive task analysis becomes basic, foundational, in business, government and academia. Working Minds helps discover how to lay such foundation.