Taxonomies of Human Performance: The Description of Human Tasks

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 deals with conceptual and methodological issues in developing useful taxonomic structures in various areas of behavioral sciences, and relates these to developments in other sciences. Innovative efforts in areas of human performance are reviewed and evaluated according to a variety of criteria. The world of human tasks is not impossibly diverse and common task dimensions that allow improved predictions of human performance can be identified.

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.”

Edwin A. Fleishman, Ph.D., is internationally known for his research on human abilities and the analysis of work requirements. Dr. Fleishman has been a professor at Yale University, and the University of California, and is currently Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at George Mason University and President of Management Research Institute, Inc.

Dr. Fleishman is the author of numerous journal articles, encyclopedia articles and books, including Studies in Personnel and Industrial Psychology, Psychology and Human Performance, The Structure and Measurement of Physical Fitness, Current Developments in the Study of Leadership, Handbook of Item Abilities, Human Performance & Productivity, and Taxonomies of Human Performance. He has been editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Psychology, and has served on the editorial boards of the journals Personnel Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Human Resource Management Review, Leadership Quarterly and the International Journal of Cognitive Ergonomics.

He has been elected president of three Divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA), including the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the Division of Evaluation and Measurement, and also served as Chair of APA’s Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment. He was also elected president of the International Association of Applied Psychology.

Honors he has received include the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology and more recently its Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology. He has also received the Distinguished Professional Contributions Award from the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology For his contributions, the University of Edinburgh awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree.

Dr Fleishman has been a consultant to numerous industrial, educational, and governmental organizations, including the U.S. Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Department of Justice, has served on the Advisory Panel on Psychology and the Social Sciences in the Office of Secretary of Defense, and served the Board of Examiners of the U.S. State Department. He has been a consultant to such companies as AT&T, IBM, General Electric, Edison Electric, Uniroyal, and, Sherring Plough Pharmaceuticals.

Marilyn K. Quaintance (now Gowing), Ph.D., has been Director for Personnel Resources and Development of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In this role, she has directed the largest civilian psychological research center in the U.S. government concerned with the analysis of work requirements, ability and performance appraisal, personnel selection and placement, training analysis and development, and organizational analysis. She has also been Director of Assessment Services for the International Personnel Management Association.

Her work has been widely recognized in the public and private sectors and she has received many awards for her contributions. She has been a national officer of the American Psychological Association’s Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and President of the Personnel Testing Council of Washington. She is the author of many publications including, The Changing Face and Place of Work, Dimensions of Effective Behavior, Assessing the Quality of the Federal Workforce, Personnel Selection of the Future, and Intelligent Placement and Career Management.