Understanding Socio-technical Challenges and Benefits of Instructional Tools in Telementoring

Abstract

The rise of remote workers in a wide array of industries from manufacturing to surgery has led to the proliferation of telecommunications devices to support these future work practices, aiming to gain greater access to expertise that is often distributed across locations. However, current telecommunication systems provide limited support for team knowledge sharing, i.e., the process within which team members collectively contribute to developing a shared understanding of the work, through which expertise, or in-situ knowledge is acquired. The objective of my dissertations research is to develop a systematic understanding of the impact of proper use of a tele-instructional technology, through applying a set of pre-identified communication skills, on team knowledge sharing in telementoring tasks, where a local trainee is acting upon objects mentored by a remote trainer. With a thorough examination of the trainee and trainer's discourse in distributed training, this dissertations demonstrates that effective use of the pointing and drawing tools, and engaging the trainee in the decision making makes the team knowledge level grounding process more efficient by increasing the trainers' expansion of the knowledge and taking the trainees' perspective, followed the trainees' increased provision of relevant action and answers in response to trainees inquiries. On the other hand, the unmet needs of two-sided virtual engagement, co-ownership over the virtual space, and recall impair trainees' proactive behaviors contributing to the knowledge co-construction. I propose socio-technical implications for addressing the observed needs. My findings contribute to expanding our understanding of what needs to be implemented in an effective telementoring environment.