EFFECT OF INFORMATION AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF USERS TRAINING

To operate a computer software system computer users need to obtain in formation about the system at five levels of abstraction, from concret e to abstract: physical, logical, functional, conceptual, and objectiv e. The five levels of information may be presented at different stages of users' training, with each stage involving only a certain kind of information. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of physical + logical information versus functional + conceptual informa tion given at different stages on users' performance. Subjects with no prior knowledge of a computer database received two stages of trainin g to learn how to construct queries of the computer database. At the p reliminary stage, only one kind of information was provided. After two stages, the subjects were asked to perform query tasks using the data base. The statistical analysis of subjects' accuracy showed no signifi cant effects of information at either stage and no significant interac tion. Explanations of this finding are provided.