LEARNING BY EXPLORATION

Abstract

The purposes of this research are to investigate how people learn by exploration and what problems they encounter while doing so, and to define design features for easy-to-explore interactive systems. Two groups of five subjects (naive and knowledgeable with computers) participated in a two hour experiment wherein they learned a menu-driven personal computer system. They were asked to think aloud during the session; their actions and the system's responses were recorded by videotape. Results show that learners are cognitively active when they explore: they put up explanations, draw analogies, form hypotheses, run small experiments to test and refine their knowledge, etc. They also encounter serious difficulties: confusion, misinterpretations, tangles of errors, side-tracking, dead-ends, etc. Learners' attitudes about exploration are globally positive but not monolithic. No clear between-groups difference appears in the processes used for exploring, nor in the difficulties encountered, nor in learners' attitudes. This paper discusses some ways for improving the ease of exploration of interactive systems.