Abstract

This research focuses on developing cognitive models of representations and processes of learners in a computer mediated communication environment. The purpose of the research is to enhance traditional and network working environments with intelligent help, tutors and performance support systems. The current research activities are centered on developing cognitive models of basic software applications found in computer-supported cooperative work environments such as spreadsheets. Spreadsheets programs are certainly one of the most widely end user applications used in organizations. Although the usability and power of spreadsheets have made it a success story, there are still some usability issues regarding the ease of understanding and learning an analytical model implemented in a spreadsheet. Given the important role spreadsheets play for communication and cooperation in organizations (Nardi & Miller, 1991), and the growth of groupware integrating spreadsheets functionalities, it appears essential to develop a cognitive model of representation and processes for software design and evaluation and for design and evaluation of learning material using spreadsheet functionalities. The current stage of this research is focused on building a cognitive model of how spreadsheet representational tools determine the construction of mental models of some knowledge domain. This is an important issue for designing learning material using spreadsheets given that it is well known that they impose an opacity between the presentation layer in the form of tabular data and the underlying functional layer that supports computation (Isakowitz,

Citations