Not included here are specialized systems that have been developed for single contexts, such as the classroom behavior of small children, the responses of subjects in tightly controlled laboratory experiments, and the evaluation of employees. One fast-food restaurant, for example, has developed a thirty-one-category observation system that managers can use to observe and evaluate counter staff. Items include "There is a smile," "The bag is double folded," and "Change is counted efficiently."
Observation systems have been used for a wide variety of purposes over the years. Early uses included psychiatric diagnosis, job placement, and basic research into group process and development. As corporate assessment centers came into widespread use for the selection of executives, early observation systems reappeared for the analysis of leaderless-group exercises. More recent applications have included research and consulting on team building and training, the evaluation of social workers, the prediction of success and failure of military cadets, the study of leadership networks in large corporations, the evaluation and treatment of problem children in the classroom, the evaluation of psychiatric interventions, the analysis of delinquent behavior, and resocialization, and consultation on mergers and consolidations (Polley et al.
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