Training adult novices to use computers: Effects of different types of illustrations

  • Authors:

  • E. James Kehoe;Timothy C. Bednall;Leon Yin;Kirk N. Olsen;Claudia Pitts;Julie D. Henry;Phoebe E. Bailey

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

  • Venue:
  • Computers in Human Behavior
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Two experiments examined the acquisition of word-processing skills (Experiment 1) and internet usage skills (Experiment 2) by novice adults using three types of illustration, specifically, full-screen illustrations with the text superimposed, icons embedded in the text, and a control, text-only condition. Training with the full-screen or embedded icons yielded significant improvements in performance relative to the text-only condition only in tests that simply required the participants to repeat the step-by-step directions. When tests required that the participants themselves retrieve and reproduce the sequence of steps, the training with illustrations - especially the full-screen illustrations - repeatedly had a negative effect on performance. The results suggest that the illustrations, by making it easy to execute each step of a procedure during training, encouraged superficial processing, which in turn yielded a set of stimulus-response associations rather than a well-linked sequence of actions in long-term memory.