Effects of Instructional Strategy and Motion Presentation Conditions on the Acquisition and Transfer of Electromechanical Troubleshooting Skill

Abstract

Three instructional strategy conditions and the presence or absence of visually presented motion during instruction were manipulated, and their effects on the acquisition and transfer of electromechanical troubleshooting performance were investigated. In this study use of visually presented motion during training (as opposed to static display presentation) was not found to enhance either maintenance performance or transfer on troubleshooting tasks. However, results indicated that subjects trained via a procedure-based training strategy performed more accurately, but slower, than did subjects whose training consisted of conceptual information concerning system structure and function for a reference performance task. When a transfer task was used as the criterion measure, results indicated that training that included conceptual information concerning a system's structure and/or function improved performance. Results thus suggested that some level of generic structure and functional knowledge is required for cross-domain transfer on cognitive troubleshooting tasks, and that this information should include both general procedures for troubleshooting and declarative information on the structure and function of the systems of interest.

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