APRIL/MAY 2001
STUDENTS SOLVE PROBLEMS OF STATE AGENCIES
FSU graduate students are helping state agencies solve problems by analyzing their performance systems.
The Florida Department of Children and Families, for example, wants to retain a competent staff to determine eligibility and administer food stamps, cash assistance, Medicaid and other programs.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation wants to review and revamp its hotel and restaurant elevator inspection process.
For solutions, these and other state agencies are turning to graduate students at FSU's department of educational research for expertise in conducting performance systems analysis projects.
The students are helping state agencies and businesses improve their operations with systematic solutions to their problems. And the students are gaining valuable experience.
Students learn how to analyze a problem from the performance technology point of view and provide recommendations including training, restructuring, reprocessing and reorganizing.
"The field of instructional systems is changing," said Abbas Darabi, professor of learning systems at FSU. "The companies hiring our students are no longer concerned with just training and instruction programs. They are looking for trained professionals who are able to assist them in resolving their organizational performance problems by providing systematic solutions ."
"We've used students to research a variety of activities, " said Jim Jolley, training and research manager for the Office of Performance Development, Flo-rida Department of Revenue.
"They have saved us more than 400 work hours per team," "We currently have three teams working on evaluating our correspondence communications for best response time, work sampling for recruitment and selection, and also in the child support enforcement area."
The students are also using FSU Parking Services and the FSU
College of Education.
- Denise Lemay
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