Improving learning transfer from stencils-based tutorials

  • Authors:

  • Kyle J. Harms;Jordana H. Kerr;Caitlin L. Kelleher

  • Affiliations:

  • Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO;The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC;Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

To support children learning to use new software applications independently, tutorial systems should prevent errors and ensure that users are able to transfer tutorial skills to a new context effectively. In this paper, we describe the formative development and evaluation of on-request stencils, an interaction technique that both prevents children from making errors within a tutorial and significantly improves their ability to transfer tutorial skills to a related task. Using on-request stencils, users can attempt a task independently. If they encounter difficulty, users can request step by step tutorial overlays to guide them through the current task. In a study comparing tutorial performance, task performance, and attitudes, we found that users of on-request stencils successfully completed 47% more transfer tasks than users of persistent stencils. There were no significant differences between the two groups in tutorial performance or attitudes towards the software system.