Development and Evaluation of the Windows Computer Experience Questionnaire (WCEQ)

The software market has been inundated with Windows-based application programs claiming increased usability and convenience. Although this trend is indeed prolific, it has resulted in two important implications: (a) an increase in the need to select employees with high levels of Windows-based computer expertise or to identify current employees who require enhanced training, and (b) an increase in the need to measure user expertise to support human-computer interaction research. Despite these increasing demands, questionnaires used to determine general computer experience are scarce. Furthermore, questionnaires regarding computer experience in a Windows environment are seemingly nonexistent. A reliable means of measuring experience in a Windows environment could substantially facilitate both human-computer interaction research and training. This article describes the procedures used to develop and test the reliability of the Windows Computer Experience Questionnaire (WCEQ). A test-retest correlation revealed that the WCEQ is a reliable measure of computer experience. Furthermore, a subsequent factor analysis revealed that the WCEQ is composed of four main factors: general Windows experience, advanced Windows experience, formal instruction and reliance on help functions.     

A data mining technique for discovering distinct patterns of hand signs: implications in user training and computer interface design

Hand signs are considered as one of the important ways to enter information into computers for certain tasks. Computers receive sensor data of hand signs for recognition. When using hand signs as computer inputs, we need to (1) train computer users in the sign language so that their hand signs can be easily recognized by computers, and (2) design the computer interface to avoid the use of confusing signs for improving user input performance and user satisfaction. For user training and computer interface design, it is important to have a knowledge of which signs can be easily recognized by computers and which signs are not distinguishable by computers. This paper presents a data mining technique to discover distinct patterns of hand signs from sensor data. Based on these patterns, we derive a group of indistinguishable signs by computers. Such information can in turn assist in user training and computer interface design.     

A data mining technique for discovering distinct patterns of hand signs: implications in user training and computer interface design

Hand signs are considered as one of the important ways to enter information into computers for certain tasks. Computers receive sensor data of hand signs for recognition. When using hand signs as computer inputs, we need to (1) train computer users in the sign language so that their hand signs can be easily recognized by computers, and (2) design the computer interface to avoid the use of confusing signs for improving user input performance and user satisfaction. For user training and computer interface design, it is important to have a knowledge of which signs can be easily recognized by computers and which signs are not distinguishable by computers. This paper presents a data mining technique to discover distinct patterns of hand signs from sensor data. Based on these patterns, we derive a group of indistinguishable signs by computers. Such information can in turn assist in user training and computer interface design.     

Development of instructional strategy of computer application software for group instruction

This study was designed to develop practical and effective teaching strategies of computer application software for group instruction at Tamkang University. The assumption was that practical strategies for learning computer application software that were highly organized, provided hands-on learning, and proceeded in small steps would be successful in increasing the skill level of students. It utilized the cognitive concept of “scaffolding” that novice should be assisted at the beginning and promoted to self-learning. At the first stage, students and instructors evaluated four Microsoft PowerPoint instructional CD-ROMs and an instructional CD-ROM was developed according to the designing principles of the evaluation. Secondly, interviews were employed to gather data from the instructors and students of introductory computer courses. Based on the criteria defined by literature review and interview, instructional strategies for computer application software learning for group instruction were developed. These strategies and designing guidelines were further implemented and revised by selected instructors. Formative evaluation of instructional strategies and designing guidelines for instructional CD-ROM were conducted with participant observation and interview. Instructional strategies, which included motivation, organization, demonstration, practice, and transfer stages, were developed for evaluation. After the evaluation, instructors reported that these strategies provided them a systematic and efficient approach in designing their instruction and the instructional CD-ROM were helpful to the group instruction process. The students concluded that the new instructional processes were more motivating, organized and interacting. However, students suggested they need more time for practice during group instruction. They recommended that the instructional CD-ROM could take the major role of individualized instruction after 4–6 h of group instruction.     

Giving undo attention

The problems associated with the provision of an undo support facility in the context of a synchronous shared or group editor are investigated. Previous work on the development of formal models of ‘undo’ has been restricted to single user systems and has focused on the functionality of undo, as opposed to discussing the support that users require from any error recovery facility. Motivated by new issues that arise in the context of computer supported co-operative work, the authors aim to integrate formal modelling of undo with an analysis of how users understand undo facilities. Together, these combined perspectives of the system and user lead to concrete design advice for implementing an undo facility. The special issues that arise in the context of shared undo also shed light on the emphasis that should be placed on single user undo. In particular, the authors regard undo not as a system command to be implemented, but as a user intention to be supported by the system.     

Formal reasoning about dialogue properties with automatic support

One of the advantages of using formal methods in the design of human–computer interfaces is the possibility to reason about user interface properties. Model checking techniques provide a useful support to this end. This paper discusses the possibilities of verifying the properties of user interfaces and related problems, such as when the dialogue specification has an infinite number of states. We provide an example of a set of general user interfaces properties, and we show how these properties can be tailored for specific cases and thus be used as a framework to evaluate the design of the interactive application considered.     

The Support Infrastructure

A support infrastructure can make or break the user interface, whether the user is an individual, a group collaborating informally, a formal organization, or more than one organization. Education and training are key elements of that support infrastructure as are consulting, technical, and user peer support.     

Designing screens for people to use easily

The use of interactive computer systems is expanding rapidly. In many applications users can communicate directly with computer-based systems through an interactive dialogue at a display terminal. However, this direct form of communication has created problems. Whereas early users of on-line systems were skilled computer professionals, today's users may have little or no training in computer technology. How then does this group communicate effectively with a computer systems?

The answer is that many users communicate only with considerable difficulty. The result is that the effectiveness of many systems is very much less than expected. The reason for this is simple: these systems are not very good at communicating with their users.

The most common communications bridge between a person and a computer system is a display screen. A well-designed screen format can enhance user productivity, eliminate or reduce user input errors, and promote end user satisfaction. A poorly designed screen has the opposite effect: it will decrease human processing speed, provoke user mistakes, and complicate computer operations.

Screen design requires the same care as designing the overall application. It employs the same techniques as planning and preparing good user documents. Screens, like documents, must be easy to understand and easy to use. To achieve these objectives, screen designers must make good choices regarding three ease-of-use parameters: format; screen content and layout; and style. This paper describes how standards may be established for each of these parameters in a proposed application or system. Futher, an interactive tutorial computer program has been developed (using Bricklin's DEMO program) which may be used to illustrate the application of these standards.     

Computerized comprehension training for whom and under which conditions is it efficient?

The purpose of this study was to examine the differential impact of a computer‐based comprehension training programme according to second graders' comprehender profiles. These profiles differed in the children's abilities to process three types of textual information: literal information, text‐connecting inferences and gap‐filling inferences. The results showed that all the profiles improved significantly after the training on the question type that had caused them the greatest amount of difficulty on the pretest. In addition, factors that could a priori predict the effectiveness of the programme were investigated by comparing children who benefited from the instruction (responders) with those who did not benefit (nonresponders). Before instruction, these children differed in their lexical knowledge level and logical reasoning skills, but not in their memory or comprehension‐monitoring abilities. The results support the claim that children with comprehension difficulties form a heterogeneous group and emphasize the need to examine the differential impact of comprehension instruction according to the characteristics of poor comprehenders.     

Teaching e-commerce Web page evaluation and design: a pilot study using tourism destination sites

This study explores a teaching method for improving business students’ skills in e-commerce page evaluation and making Web design majors aware of business content issues through cooperative learning. Two groups of female students at a Japanese university studying either tourism or Web page design were assigned tasks that required cooperation to investigate whether a minimum of formal training and interaction between the two groups would result in an increase in the “design” students’ awareness of content issues in page design, and an improvement in the “tourism” students’ ability to evaluate Web pages related to tourism. The results showed only slight improvements, suggesting that either the amount of cooperative learning must be increased or some formal instruction must be introduced.     

Novice use of a relational database: A case study of a local history data file

Some problems regarding the use of relational databases for student research into local history will be analysed in this paper. Users were introduced to the search facilities available to the database over three sessions, and a number of user-characteristics were compared with the users' performances on a number of data retrieval tasks. In particular we observed the influence of previous computer and history experience on the efficient retrieval of data, measured both by the number of correct answers to pre-specified queries and time-on-task. In addition two factors which might be expected to influence performance, measures of basic computer skills and comprehension of the structure of database were taken. The results showed that the dominance of previous computing knowledge over performance, apparent in the first training period, disappeared in the second training period, only to re-emerge in the final session. It will be argued that there are two critical behaviours which predict successful outcomes. the first is acquisition of basic keyboard skills and the second the willingness of the user to actively interact with the computer program through its help screens and menus. There was no influence of previous historical knowledge of performance in these tasks.     

Computer user training and attitudes: a study of business undergraduates

For many users, the first real encounter with a computer occurs when taking an introductory course to computers at a college. To the extent that these training courses impact user understanding and motivation, they are important determinants of the user attitudes towards computers and merit serious assessment. Using 327 business undergraduates at two universities in the US, this paper reports on the reactions of students to computers and computer-related tasks before and after an introductory course to computers. Responses to a 20-item scale were analysed to examine the pattern of attitude change experienced by students in their training course. Factor analysis revealed five constructs for describing patterns of computer user attitude: negative reaction to computers; positive reaction to computers; reaction to computers for children education; reaction to computer-mediated services; and reaction to computer games. Four factors show significant change in mean scores after the training courses. The attitudes changed for males more than females, indicating improvement in attitudes. The respondents' attitude to computer-mediated services remained unchanged. While the directions of changes indicate an overall improvement in respondents' reactions, many attitudes did not change significantly after having taken the training courses. This may be due to the content or the format of these courses.     

Determinants of user participation: a Finnish survey

The relationship between user participation and information systems success has intrigued researchers for two decades. Despite this history there is minimal research on the antecedents of user participation. The tenet of the present paper is that the conditions of user participation are essentially changing. Especially, the European tradition of user participation has focused on blue collar workers rather than professionals and managers. Users are normally assumed to be computer illiterate. The North American tradition has almost exclusively focused on the impact of user participation on information systems success. The present paper examined the significance of organizational level of users, their task variety and computer experience as determinants of user participation including age, gender, education, computer training, organizational tenure and job tenure as control variables. The three determinants were found to have a significant positive effect on user participation, computer experience emerging as the most dominant factor. Gender, education and computer training were discovered to have significant effects mediated by organizational level, task variety and computer experience.     

Criteria for evaluating CAI applications

This paper introduces novel criteria for evaluating computer-aided instruction (CAI) applications. The criteria are based on the character of the teaching subject, human learning theories, and research on user interfaces. The criteria consist of four types of requirements: subject domain, instructional, user interface design, and pragmatic matters. A practical analysis method based on the criteria is also introduced. In this paper the subject domain criteria are based on the discipline of computer science, though the criteria are applicable to other domains too.     

Teaching a pet-robot to understand user feedback through interactive virtual training tasks

In this paper, we present a human-robot teaching framework that uses “virtual” games as a means for adapting a robot to its user through natural interaction in a controlled environment. We present an experimental study in which participants instruct an AIBO pet robot while playing different games together on a computer generated playfield. By playing the games and receiving instruction and feedback from its user, the robot learns to understand the user’s typical way of giving multimodal positive and negative feedback. The games are designed in such a way that the robot can reliably predict positive or negative feedback based on the game state and explore its user’s reward behavior by making good or bad moves. We implemented a two-staged learning method combining Hidden Markov Models and a mathematical model of classical conditioning to learn how to discriminate between positive and negative feedback. The system combines multimodal speech and touch input for reliable recognition. After finishing the training, the system was able to recognize positive and negative reward with an average accuracy of 90.33%.     

A contingency model of computer and Internet self-efficacy

Information system researchers have recently devoted considerable attention to the concept of computer self-efficacy in order to understand computer user behavior and system use. This article reports on the development and examination of a contingency model of computer and Internet self-efficacy. User attitude and computer anxiety were assumed to influence the development of computer and Internet self-efficacy. Measures of user attitude, computer anxiety, computer self-efficacy, and Internet self-efficacy were used in a university environment to collect 347 responses at both the beginning and end of an introductory computer course. Results suggested that training significantly improved computer and Internet self-efficacy. Respondents with ‘favorable’ attitudes toward computers improved their self-efficacy significantly more than respondents with ‘unfavorable’ attitudes. Respondents with ‘low’ computer anxiety improved their self-efficacy significantly more than respondents with ‘high’ computer anxiety. The interaction effect between attitude and anxiety was significant for computer self-efficacy scores but not for Internet self-efficacy scores. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Effectiveness of a microcomputer-training workshop for college professionals

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a three-week microcomputer training workshop for college professionals. Measuring instruments were developed specifically for this purpose. Goals were to increase proficiency with, understanding of, and knowledge about computers, to reduce nervousness, and to examine the effects of prior attitude toward the computer on workshop effectiveness. Participants were 24 female and 27 male college professional staff; the majority were professors. Instruction, by other college faculty and staff, was provided for three consecutive hours per day. Participants completed questionnaires immediately before and after the workshop. Reliability analyses showed that the measuring instruments had good internal consistency. Repeated-measures analyses of variance found that participants thought computers were more understandable, and described themselves as less nervous, more knowledgeable, and more proficient after the workshop than before. Results also showed that general computer attitude had no effect, but that a more specific measure of perceived computer clarity was related to workshop effectiveness. Thus, the results demonstrated that group training using peer instruction was successful with a college sample.     

Computer user training and attitudes: a study of business undergraduates

Abstract

For many users, the first real encounter with a computer occurs when taking an introductory course to computers at a college. To the extent that these training courses impact user understanding and motivation, they are important determinants of the user attitudes towards computers and merit serious assessment. Using 327 business undergraduates at two universities in the US, this paper reports on the reactions of students to computers and computer-related tasks before and after an introductory course to computers. Responses to a 20-item scale were analysed to examine the pattern of attitude change experienced by students in their training course. Factor analysis revealed five constructs for describing patterns of computer user attitude: negative reaction to computers; positive reaction to computers; reaction to computers for children education; reaction to computer-mediated services; and reaction to computer games. Four factors show significant change in mean scores after the training courses. The attitudes changed for males more than females, indicating improvement in attitudes. The respondents‘ attitude to computer-mediated services remained unchanged. While the directions of changes indicate an overall improvement in respondents’ reactions, many attitudes did not change significantly after having taken the training courses. This may be due to the content or the format of these courses.     

Applying minimalist design principles to the problem of computer anxiety

Computer anxiety is one possible barrier to acquisition of computer skills. To test whether an instructional intervention could decrease computer anxiety while training subjects in basic word-processing skills, instruction was developed according to the minimalist design principles of John Carroll and was compared with a commercially available instructional unit.The design of the experiment was a repeated measures control group with random assignment of subjects. Two instructional sessions were held, separated by 1 month. Subjects were pre- and posttested with respect to computer anxiety during each instructional session. Subjects worked on two similar word-processing tasks, a practice and a transfer task, during the first instructional session and on another similar word-processing task during the second instructional session. Subjects' performances on the word-processing tasks were scored according to a performance checklist. For the experimental group, there was a statistically significant decrease in computer anxiety immediately following the first instructional treatment. For the control group, there was also a decrease in computer anxiety, but this occurred over the 1-month experimental time-frame. Both experimental and control treatments were equally effective in training subjects to perform the word-processing tasks.     

Is Web-based instruction popular in psychology? A national survey

To date, there has been sparse research on the extent of use of online (Web-based) instructional approaches in academic Psychology. This survey reports the findings of a national survey (N = 207) of Chairs of Psychology departments on the didactic use of online instruction. Although the respondents expressed positive views regarding Web-based pedagogy, the actual implementation by psychology faculty of online instruction was reported by Chairs as being somewhat negligible. Previous studies have found that that the major drawback to the use of online teaching is the lack of formal training in computer technology on the part of psychology instructors (e.g., Vodanovich, S. J., & Piotrowski, C. (2001). Journal of Instructional Psychology, 28, 253–255). The implications of embracing Web-based didactic approaches for the field are discussed.