An Examination of Procedural and Object-oriented Systems Analysis Methods: Does Prior Experience Help or Hinder Performance?*

Interest in object-oriented analysis (OOA) and object-oriented design (OOD) has expanded rapidly over the last several years. Proponents of OOA and OOD have called the shift to these methods “revolutionary” and have cited a number of impressive claims with respect to their use. However, empirical research investigating these claims remains in its infancy. Moreover, an examination of the literature reveals inconclusive and often conflicting results for OOA and OOD methods relative to traditional data and/or procedural techniques. This paper presents the results of an empirical study that examined both experienced and novice systems analysts using both procedural and object-oriented techniques. This research examined whether experience in using procedural methods helped or hindered performance using OOA and compared procedural and OOA methods on the subjective mental workload induced. A human problem-solving model adopted from Newell and Simon (1972) provided the theoretical framework for this study. Dependent variables include subjective mental workload, solution quality, time to perform task, and attitudinal measures. Although some of these dependent variables have been used in past research, we believe this is the first time that subjective mental workload (SMW) has been examined in an IS context. Our results indicate that both novice and experienced subjects demonstrate higher SMW when using OOA. In addition, as a group, novices prefer object-oriented techniques and find these techniques easier as compared to experienced subjects.     

Re-examining female labor supply responses to the 1994 Australian pension reform

Many governments are aiming to extend working lives by raising the age at which people can claim retirement pensions. This makes it vital to understand how these policies affect retirement decisions. In this paper, I revisit the labor supply effects of a major Australian reform that increased women’s pension age from 60 to 65. Atalay and Barrett (2015) studied these effects using repeated household surveys and a differences-in-differences design in which male cohorts form the comparison group. They estimate that the reform increased female labor force participation by 12 percentage points. Using earlier data, I show that the parallel-trends assumption did not hold before the reform because of a strong female-specific trend in participation rates across the relevant cohorts. Accounting for this trend, the estimated effect on female participation falls by two-thirds and becomes statistically insignificant at conventional levels. This highlights the importance of carefully assessing and controlling for trends across cohorts when evaluating pension reforms, which are typically phased in across cohorts.