[quoting Hedden, 24 Oct 94] Could you explain what you mean by "performance support" (as opposed, for example to "help," "guidance," or "advisement")? Is this type of support under user control?
Most developers would see help, guidance, and advisement as components of a performance support system. Our latest work has constructed this as a continuum (one of many) with performance support ranging from information provision (e.g., definition) to step-by-step tutorials. This is under user control, although it may be initially instructor defined, with the user having the option to determine the level of performance support at any one time. I don't think it should be adaptive as such, as users may return to a module after some time and require a higher level of PS than required at their previous access.
On another matter, our Master's class had a useful discussion on transactions the other night and came up with some interesting observations and questions.
First the questions (and we didn't get any answers):
1. Is a transaction connected with an outcome?
2. Is a transaction negotiable?
We also came up with an example of some educational software which may provide a distinction between an Interaction and a Transaction. I'll try and use words to describe the structure:
The student receives a brief introduction that they are to examine two different rooms. After examining these rooms, they can select an option to record their observations. The two rooms (A and B) are identical, with a table, a ball of plasticine on the table and three arrows (left, right and up) by which force can be applied to the ball. In room A, applying the force causes the ball to move in a horizontal or vertical line until it splats on either the wall or the ceiling. In room B, the ball either falls to the floor or goes up and then splats back on the table. In recording the observations, students describe what the saw in both room A and room B as well as trying to describe WHY the differences occurred (if you didn't pick it, room A had no gravity).
We concluded that choosing room A or room B, applying the forces and recording observations were all INTERACTIONS and the whole process a TRANSACTION. As for measuring cognitive aspects of the task, this was left to analysis of responses by the teacher and discussion with students (we sometimes forget that people are needed to support instructional software).
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this attempt to differentiate some of the factors we've been discussing.