SBIR Phase I: Cognitive Agility Assessment Tool

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目关注于一个评估工具的开发，该工具将使用户能够在高级业务情况下分析决策者的认知敏捷性和专业知识。它适用于评估组织中的决策者和评估学生。它基于WTRI最近的基础研究结果，该研究揭示了可能涉及确定业务专业知识的机制。它使用WTRI多年来开发的知识启发技术来支持对直觉专业知识识别的研究（在Dreyfus， 1997年的意义上）。该项目概述了一项计划，计划开发一个基于互联网的在线版本，该版本可以自我评分，并已在知名专家中进行了测试。该产品还将进行现场测试，以确定其预测通用与行业特定专业知识的能力。预期的结果是一种易于管理的技术，可供专业评价人员、教授、学生或个人使用，并将有助于工作人员的发展和教育。产品产生的专业知识概况将确定隐藏的优势、弱点领域和进一步发展的建议。一个长期的目标是创造出可以由合格的经销商和大学分发的版本。在当前快速变化的工作环境中，决策者需要不断评估自己适应变化的能力，并重新创造组织的价值和竞争未来。很少有评估工具处理所涉及的技能集所涉及的认知基础。相反，他们评估的是与广义的领导力有一定关联的个人特质或子技能。WTRI使用经过经验验证的业务战略开发和性能预测专业知识模型，构建了一个评估工具，可以根据该模型定位个人，就像根据国际象棋大师的概念评估国际象棋选手一样。当应用于个别客户情况时，该工具显示出强大的预测能力，并成功地为员工发展工作提供了信息。它的显著特点是评估分析不同信息源的能力，以便做出战略层面的决策和支持战术计划。让非科学家更广泛地获得和使用它，将更有助于提高组织和决策者的绩效。组织、经销商和一些高等教育机构对这个项目表示了兴趣，以解决他们认为尚未满足的需求领域。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project concerns the development of an assessment tool that will enable users to profile a decision-maker's cognitive agility and expertise in high-level business situations. It is appropriate for evaluating decision makers in organizations and for evaluating students. It is based on results from WTRI's recent basic research that has uncovered mechanisms that may be involved in the determination of business expertise. It uses knowledge elicitation technology that WTRI has developed over several years to support research on the identification of intuitive expertise (in the sense of Dreyfus, 1997). The project outlines a plan to develop an on-line internet based version that is self-scoring and has been tested among well-known experts. The product will also be field-tested for its ability to predict general vs. industry specific expertise. The expected outcome is an easy to administer technology that can used by professional evaluators, professors, students or individuals and will assist in staff development and education. The profiles of expertise generated by the product will identify hidden strengths, areas of weakness, and suggestions for further development. A long-term goal is to create versions that can be distributed by qualified resellers and universities. In the current climate of rapid workplace change, decision-makers need to continually evaluate their ability to adapt to changes and re-invent their organization's value and competitive future. Few assessment tools address the cognitive underpinnings involved in the skill set involved. Rather, they evaluate personal traits or sub-skills that have some correlation with leadership, broadly defined. Using an empirically verified model of expertise in business strategy development and performance prediction, WTRI has built an assessment tool that locates an individual against this model, much like chess players are evaluated against a notion of a Chess Grand Master. When applied to individual client situations, this tool has shown itself to have powerful predictive capability and has successfully informed staff development efforts. Its distinctive feature is assessment of the ability to analyze disparate sources of information in order to make strategy level decisions and supporting tactical plans. Making it more widely available and usable by non-scientists would greater contribute to efforts to increase the performance of both organizations and decision makers. Organizations, distributors and several institutions of higher learning have expressed interest in this project to address what they consider to be an unmet need area.