Dr. Holley L Handley

This article is the first in a three-part series that explores the performance improvement project for the Gulf Coast chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), which was conducted to investigate the reasons behind the chapter's inability to fulfill its mission of creating an ISPI chapter for performance improvement students and practitioners. The series is organized by phases in the Performance Improvement/Human Performance Technology (Van Tiem et al., 2012) model. This first article covers the problem identification, performance analysis, and intervention recommendation phases. The second article will focus on the intervention design, development, and implementation, and the final article will examine the evaluation results.
We conducted a rigorous performance analysis to identify the desired and current performance states, gaps, and root causes. This mixed methods study used extant data analysis and interviews to determine the current and desired states, performance gaps, and root causes. An online survey was used to help identify appropriate interventions. The analysis results revealed performance gaps associated with strategic planning, staffing, communications, programming, and membership. The root cause analysis results revealed a lack of vision, lack of motivation, insufficient buy-in, and ineffective planning. We proposed two intervention sets: organizational design interventions and organizational development interventions. This article provides valuable insights for performance improvement practitioners aiming to address the challenges of enhancing performance within distinct organizational environments, such as a professional organization chapter.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe how participating in the ISPI University Case Study competition influenced student learning. Authentic learning experiences provide learners with an instructional opportunity to apply previously obtained knowledge and skills to a simulated yet authentic work environment. The population for the study was limited to students who participated in ISPI University Case Study Competitions in the years 2010, 2014, and 2019. All students were online graduate students enrolled in a performance improvement degree program from a single participating university.

The ISPI Academic Committee was formed earlier in the year, in June 2024, following the ISPI conference. Broadly, the ISPI Academic Committee is looking into three areas: (1) Research and Publications; (2) Case Study Competition; and (3) Academic and Corporate Organizational Membership.

One of the ongoing conversations within the Performance Improvement (PI) academic committee is the quest to find an ideal home for departments that impart formalized education and training in the field.

Within this issue of Performance Improvement Journal are four perspectives offered by Dr. Sue Czeropski, Lead of ISPI’s Academic Committee; Dr. Deri Draper-Amason, Lead for the Case Study Competition Subcommittee; Dr. Holley Handley, Case Study Competition Subcommittee member; and, Dr. Ria Roy, Lead of the Research and Publications Subcommittee.

Online collaboration tools have become a practical addition to the resources available to navigate the virtual space. Visual collaboration platforms, such as Miro, Mural, and Lucid chart, solve time and space restrictions applicable to traditional in-person group collaboration by providing a mechanism for real-time interaction without geographic limitations. This article provides five best practices for effectively utilizing interactive online whiteboards in real-world, practical applications from the perspective of an instructor-instructional designer, instructor-facilitator, researcher, mentor, and EdD program coordinator. The common themes woven throughout these best practices are collaboration and connectivity, facilitated by the functionality of online whiteboard tools/applications.

This essay describes the design, and subsequent redesign, of the research methods courses included in an Instructional and Performance Technology (IPT) EdD program at a regional comprehensive university in the southeast United States. The program under examination was developed based on the principles of the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate (CPED) and research and best practices aligned with the practice of performance improvement. The curriculum includes three research methods courses. The first introduces the students to the principles of action research as applied to the analysis of performance problems in organizational settings. The second addresses instrumentation and data collection processes used in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, and the third examines analyzing and reporting quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Collectively these courses provide students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to serve as scholarly practitioners, examining any type of problem of practice in any organizational setting.

This article is a formative reflection that walks the reader through the experience of taking an existing body of research and then using one aspect of that analytical framework to conduct a new and original study. This reflection presents an account of that research process. Hattie (2009) has conducted extensive research examining influences on student achievement. This article describes how a researcher took the domains he defined to categorize the influences on student achievement and used them to frame the newly developed investigation. This article reflects on the unique application of Hattie's domains as a lens to examine a K-12 organization. An overview of the study and a summary of the findings are presented to give the reader context. The focus of this article is a detailed reflection on how the research was conceived and formed.
The following six questions guide this reflection:
1. Was the experience useful?
2. What was learned?
3. How did this experience facilitate personal growth/development?
4. How was this experience impactful?
5. What would, on reflection, be done differently?
6. Were the research choices well-reasoned?
A thoughtful reflection on the process serves to inform decisions critical to formulate potential additional studies. Reflecting on the past process provides thoughtful insights for future research.

This article discusses the use of domains identified by Hattie (2009) as a research framework to conduct a qualitative, single-case study to identify attributes perceived to be instrumental in student success in a Florida Charter middle school. This study examined best practices contributing to the long-term sustained success of the middle school students in an effort to maintain and replicate high student achievement. The following question directed this study: “What school-based attributes do administrators and teachers perceive to be instrumental in student success in a Florida charter middle school?” Through research and synthesis of over 1200 meta-analyses, Hattie and his team of researchers identified 195 influences that impact learning in schools. Hattie categorized these influences into six domains identified as major contributors to learning. This case study addressed those domains under a school’s control: (a) school, (b) teacher, (c) curricula, (d) teaching. These categories provided the framework to examine the factors responsible for student success in the charter school. The data sources for the study were teacher interviews, administrator interviews, and classroom observations. The coding strategy integrated pre-figured codes aligned with Hattie’s (2009, 2011), Hattie’s (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(1), 79–91, 2015) domains (school, teacher, curricula, and teaching) while allowing for the possibility for emergent codes. Research credibility was established by (a) prolonged engagement of the researcher, (b) triangulation of data, (c) identification of potential bias, and (d) peer review. The conceptual framework used as a foundation for the study provided the structure to facilitate reliability of this research. Data collection and analysis led to the identification of three over-arching themes, flexibility, personalized learning, and high expectations, as key attributes contributing to student success.

At the start of insect embryogenesis most of the protein mass of the egg cytoplasm exists as vitellin (Vt) obtained endocytically during vitellogenesis. Of the new embryo polypeptides (EP) appearing in the egg during embryogenesis, many are synthesized de novo, while, in some species, others derive from developmentally programmed partial proteolysis of Vt. Earlier we showed that by the end of vitellogenesis the two native Vts in
Acheta domesticus exist in opposing gradients along the longitudinal axis of the egg. Here we hypothesize that this ooplasmic Vt distribution presents a milieu for Vt processing out of which region-specific regulatory molecules could arise. The metabolic origin and stage-specific patterns of seven predominant EPs (EP 1–7) identified by SDS-PAGE were examined and the results correlated with developmental morphology during the 14 days of embryogenesis. Based on antibody reactivity, peptide mapping and in vitro radiolabeling, we determined that EPs 1–3, 6 and 7 are Vt-derived, while EPs 4 and 5 are produced de novo by the embryo. The five Vt-derived EPs appear during the first 24 h of embryogenesis when migrating cleavage nuclei and associated cytoplasm form the cellular blastoderm, and levels of EPs 4 and 5 increase during days 4–6 of embryogenesis when katatrepsis and yolk mass contraction occur. Positive periodic acid-Schiff staining indicated that EPs 1–3 and their Vt-precursor polypeptides are glycoproteins. This work shows that developmental stage-specific Vt processing occurs during
A. domesticus embryogenesis and points next to investigation of the functional significance of Vt cleavage products during development.

The general physiology of two species of deep-water crabs, Chaceon fenneri and C. quinquedens, found in thermally stable environments at moderate depths, was investigated. Structure function relationships of the gills indicate animals that are typical of environments characterized by high and stable salinity. The gill lamellae are composed entirely of respiratory epithelium; no ion-transporting "chloride cells" were observed. Carbonic anhydrase, a marker enzyme for ion transport in the gill, was present in very low levels of activity, and blood osmotic and ionic concentrations were not different from ambient at salinities of either 35 or 20 ppt. Animals failed to survive in salinities lower than 20 ppt. Oxygen uptake values were typical of coldwater, benthic species, regardless of habitat depth. Chaceon quinquedens appears to have both a higher rate of oxidative metabolism and a higher rate of protein metabolism than C. fenneri, which may be indicative of a higher rate of growth. Both species, however, appear to be physiologically similar to stenohaline marine decapods from cold, shallow-water habitats.