Initial Skill Learning: An Analysis of How Elaborations Facilitate the Three Components.
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the issue of how verbal instructions influence skill learning. In particular, our goal is to outline the components of initial cognitive skill acquisition and analyze what features of elaborations in the instructional materials can facilitate each component. We identify three basic components of skill learning: learning novel concepts and the functionality of novel concepts and procedures; learning how to execute the procedures; and learning the conditions under which the procedures can and should be applied. Each of these components can be learned independently and each component can be a bottleneck' to acquiring a skill. Situation examples are the most useful type of elaboration for skill learning because example c the other hand, while analogies can be constructed to illustrate each component, they are more likely to help people learn the functionality of a procedure than how to execute it or when to select it. However, since learners tend to rely on examples as models, it is very important to choose examples with great care and to provide enough examples to illustrate the range of application of a rule or procedure. Otherwise, learners may interpret a rule incorrectly or make spurious assumptions about the conditions under which it applies. Keywords: Computer documentation; Human-computer interaction, Skill learning, Text comprehension; Analogy; Exemplification.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 14, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADA165137
Entities
People
- Davida H. Charney
- Lynne M. Reder
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University