Some failing IT projects may exhibit the characteristics of escalation of commitment as managers may continue to pour more resources into failing projects. If project managers continue to believe that the project is under their control, they may be more likely to recommend continuation of a failing project. While research in IT project management has identified many risk factors, little attention has been paid to the impact of these risk factors on decision making in projects. An experiment using a computer simulated task investigated the influence of self-efficacy and project risk characteristics on perceived control over a failing IT project. The study found that participants with higher task-specific self-efficacy were likely to perceive greater control over a failing project even when the project risk factors were less within the control of the participants.
There are many challenges to simulate the experience of a professional facing a complex situation in a discussion of a case study using an online discussion forum. The current research examines the role of two aspects of discussion forum format (group size and discussion structure) on two outcome variables (student engagement and learning). We hypothesized that more structured discussions would better enable student learning but be worse in facilitating student engagement compared with less structured discussions. We also hypothesized that larger group sizes will be more conducive to student learning but be less effective at student engagement when compared with smaller group sizes. Our study found that neither discussion forum structure nor group size influenced either student engagement or learning independently. However, they did have a significant interaction effect on both student learning and student engagement.
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