Double-fading support - A training approach to complex software systems

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

A new approach to software training is presented, the so-called Double-Fading Support (DFS) approach. According to this approach, which is based on Carroll's training-wheels idea and on cognitive theories of skill acquisition, two types of user support when learning to use a complex software system - locking the software's functionality and detailed guidance - are faded out gradually during the training course, so that the learners are able to use the complex software with minimal instructional support at the end of the training. Two 30-hour training experiments with two different CAD software systems and CAD-inexperienced university students were conducted. The results of Experiment 1 with 88 participants indicate the effectiveness of the DFS-approach for CAD software with a deeply structured menu system. Participants working with the initially reduced software outperformed participants of the full software functionality group; additionally, participants of the slowly faded guidance group outperformed participants receiving medium, fast or no fading of guidance at all. Results of Experiment 2 with 120 participants, however, indicate less effectiveness of the DFS-approach for an icon-based CAD software in which most of relevant functions are permanently visible to the user. It seems that the two factors (fading out the locking of software's functionality and fading out detailed guidance) overcompensate each other.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Computer Assisted Learning
Volume16
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)347-357
Number of pages11
ISSN0266-4909
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12.2000
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Application software, Empirical evaluation, Help systems, Training, Tutorial, Undergraduate
  • Psychology

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Trajectory tracking using MPC and a velocity observer for flat actuator systems in automotive applications
  2. ℓp-norm multiple kernel learning
  3. Individual Scans Fusion in Virtual Knowledge Base for Navigation of Mobile Robotic Group with 3D TVS
  4. Improve a 3D distance measurement accuracy in stereo vision systems using optimization methods’ approach
  5. Functional Richness and Relative Resilience of Bird Communities in Regions with Different Land Use Intensities
  6. Pressure fault recognition and compensation with an adaptive feedforward regulator in a controlled hybrid actuator within engine applications
  7. The impact of goal focus, task type and group size on synchronous net-based collaborative learning discourses
  8. Material flow analysis between dynamic modelling and life cycle assessment
  9. Active plasma resonance spectroscopy: Eigenfunction solutions in spherical geometry
  10. Collaborative benchmarking of functional-structural root architecture models
  11. Wavelet functions for rejecting spurious values
  12. Finite element modeling of laser beam welding for residual stress calculation
  13. Internet research differs from research on internet users
  14. Frame-based Data Factorizations
  15. Strengthening the transformative impulse while mainstreaming real-world labs: Lessons learned from three years of BaWü-Labs
  16. Gerbil – Benchmarking named entity recognition and linking consistently
  17. Introduction: Habitual Action, Automaticity, and Control
  18. Practice and carryover effects when using small interaction devices
  19. Teaching Sustainable Development in a Sensory and Artful Way — Concepts, Methods, and Examples
  20. Influence of Mg content in Al alloys on processing characteristics and dynamically recrystallized microstructure of friction surfacing deposits
  21. Stimulating Computing
  22. Comparison of three methods of length compensation in a parallel kinematic and their equivalence conditions
  23. Can a Revision of the Universal Service Scope Result in Substantive Change?
  24. Modeling and simulation of the heterogenous material behavior in thermal-sprayed coatings
  25. Sliding Mode Control of an Inductive Power Transmission System with Maximum Efficiency
  26. Short-arc measurement and fitting based on the bidirectional prediction of observed data
  27. Graph-Based Early-Fusion for Flood Detection
  28. Short and long-term dominance of negative information in shaping public energy perceptions