UNDERSTANDING SOURCES OF USER VARIABILITY IN COMPUTER-BASED DATA-ENTRY PERFORMANCE

The pervasive use of computers in work settings implies that an increa sed number of workers, with varying levels of skills and abilities, wi ll be performing computer-based tasks. This study investigated the imp act of age, cognitive abilities, and computer experience on the perfor mance of a real world data entry task. One hundred and ten subjects, r anging in age from 20-75 years, performed the task for nine hours foll owing task training. The results indicated that abilities such as visu o-spatial skills, motor skills and processing speed had a significant impact on performance as did age and prior computer experience. With r espect to age, the older participants completed less work than the you nger and middle-aged subjects. Age differences in psychomotor skills a nd processing speed appeared to be important factors underlying age ef fects. In fact, the data indicated that after controlling for differen ces in these abilities age was no longer a significant predictor of wo rk output. Further, after controlling for differences in work output t he older people made fewer errors than the younger people. Overall the data suggest that older people will be at a disadvantage in the perfo rmance of computer-based data entry work to the extent to which speed of responding is emphasized. However, if speed of responding is not a critical element of performance they will be able to achieve comparabl e levels of performance to that of younger people.