Home PublicationsJRTEPast IssuesVolume 33 Number 5

	Edited by Dr. David J. Ayersman, Mary Washington College, and Dr. W. Michael Reed, New York University
formerly Journal of Research on Computing in Education

Volume 33 Number 5 Summer 2001

An Embarrassment of Technology
Why Is Learning Still Difficult? Part II

Kefyalew Mandefrot
PTO-Interact (People, Technology, and Organization)

The Need for Learning Environment

Computer-use environments are where one observes what the anthropologist Pelissier (1991) calls a great divide: the modern, the advanced, the sophisticated, and the fast versus the primitive, the crude, and the slow—in short, a fertile ground for conflict. The relationships in computer use environments are mostly hierarchical and involve power and control. The gap is wide between the expert and the user, the learner and the resource person in computer learning labs.

Kling and Scacchi (1980) note the difference and the clash in computing environments as “supportive” managers, “clever” programmers, “indifferent” machine operators, “career-oriented” auditors, “stupid” users, and “foot dragging” vendors (p. 260). The environment and the implementation of computer systems mostly legitimize the experts’ preconceived notions and beliefs regarding technology in education. This is mainly because the implementation of IT, the learning manuals, and possible problems from the experts’ point of view leave no room for considering uncertainty, complexity, uniqueness, and unforeseen emerging problems.

Computer experts define problems and present solutions in a short period of time without regard for people (skills) involved. What most experts consider simple is often found by users to be difficult, because each new task requires significant restructuring, reformatting, and error correction . In computer environments, the opportunity to interact, to learn from each other, and to help each other solve problems is possible. But with young and fast computer specialists, as Snow (1963) notes, “the politeness has gone” (p. 23). Mandefrot (1997) depicts this situation as “you ask the info people something. The reply is ‘don’t you know that yet?’ I am ashamed and stopped asking anymore” (p. 192).

Conflict and apprehension are realities in the learning process because there is no learning without emotion and challenge. However, technical interests and analysis deny or try to control this reality. To minimize noncognitive elements such as sentiments, emotions, and interest and to consider hardware and software as primary have a long tradition in computing. This kind of situation at times leads a learner to feel like an outsider. Designers, for example, oversimplify the need for environmental analysis. Yet, the learning environment is a profile of where instruction occurs, who uses it, and how it is used.

Climate setting in adult learning reduces conflict and apprehension by bringing a human dimension to the learning process. For the computing session, it helps fight misconceptions about computers, unfreeze fear, and build learners’ confidence. A step-by-step introduction of adults to the physical machine and the software reduces the chance of jumping onto the machine and getting frustrated and facing what is called the production bias or production paradox. Kluckhohn (1942) considers such a problem a result of rushing learners/workers to new concepts or tasks without support and without building their confidence. To smoothly introduce learners to the world unknown to them, most adult educators use the process called facilitating adult learning.

Facilitating adult learning is a process of creating a learning environment and helping adults learn. Hammond (1990) extends effective facilitation to include providing the learner with a framework, ensuring the learners’ current assumptions, and creating new opportunities for learners. This is why adult learning principles and methods are so necessary for learning and using computers. The next section presents these needs from the perspectives of computer experts’ need for human-centered systems, and educators’ need to help people learn.

Why Adult Learning Principles and Methods?

The need for adult learning principles and methods is significant because of the common needs and problems in computing environments experienced by computer experts and the learning problems commonly observed by educators. Today’s computer experts are calling for a human-centered system. Concepts such as facilitating learning and mentoring currently appear more in computing literature than in educational literature. The purpose of a human-centered system is to provide learners with a guide to make sense out of a vast amount of information. For example, Davenport (1994) recommends humanizing information management. Morris (1994) calls for a user-centered information service. Maruyama (1984) calls for humanizing the applications of a computer. Kling, in his various publications (Kling, 1987; Kling et al., 1998; Kling & Scacchi, 1980, 1982), continually indicates the importance of approaching computers as a social practice.

The emphasis in all these recommendations is for a balance among technology, organization, and the user. The issue in all cases is how to help users get awareness and how to help them acquire computing skills and knowledge so that they can use computers with manageable problems. What Maruyama (1984) calls “humanizing application of computers” (p. 634) is a search for a nurturing learning environment that encourages learning from each other while working together. It is a means to knowing the user as a human being. However, the use of adult learning principles as a means to achieve the above purpose, though common in management training, is not common in computer training. This absence of adult learning principles and methods in computer training is related to the various claims about technology and the computer culture that tries to minimize human involvement in most computing activities. Boland (1987) considers the removal of human actor from computing and lack of serious consideration of a learner/user a fantasy and states that “the fantasies lead us to ignore the fundamental nature of interpersonal dialogue in the achievement of meaning. … Through our image of information we are fostering an image of the world in which human meanings of knowledge and action are unproblematic, predefined, and prepackaged” (pp. 363–365).

As a result, most technical analysis and technically oriented literature cannot raise a serious question such as, “How can we help a computer user become more knowledgeable about computers?” Technically oriented approaches remain unable to value the importance of adult learning principles and methods when most computer learners are adults.

Today, a reluctance by the experts to accept collective learning and to understand the user has resulted in current misunderstandings in the computer use and learning environments. Oz (1994) classifies these misunderstandings as corresponding failure, process failure, interaction failure, and expectation failure. In terms of end-user training and adult learning, these failures are the result of mismatched objectives, outcomes, lack of skills and resources, low user interaction and involvement, and vaguely expressed expectations for training. Correspondence failures usually occur when the needs of end users are ignored. Interaction failure is the outcome of “corporate directives that the employees must use the system” (Oz, p. 34).

Robbins (1995) traces the historical and systemic nature of the turbulence in the field of information technology—turbulence that forces it to neglect the realities of learning from each other while working together—and the need to develop positive interaction with users. Robbins states that “we continue to resist new thinking, and we criticize what we do not understand, we pretend to listen to our customers (our audiences) but we ignore their basic needs unless it suits our personal agenda” (p. 16). This statement illustrates the contradictory situations in the computing environment and what has made computers and computing an “incommunicable art” (Snow, 1963, p. 47).

Learning and using computers was made incommunicable because the process lacks an appropriate learning climate, sequence, and structure. Most approaches to computing minimize the elemental needs of learning and using computers, such as steps and structure in the learning process. Dickinson (1973) indicates that the ordering of any learning task is an important factor for effective learning and suggests the following arrangement for sound instructional process/sequence: from simple to complex, from general to specific, from concrete to abstract, from familiar to unknown, and from most to least frequent. This approach to learning is in line with the hierarchy of learning suggested by Bateson (1972) and the different phases of meaningful learning identified by Shuell (1990).

Tuckett (1989) presents a hierarchy of information skill as progressing from simple information skills to compound information skills and then to complex or integrated information skills. On the other hand, Eason (1989) presents the learning needs of office workers and modes of promoting learning and particularly stresses what he calls pre-use learning, which is related to the problems that are critical during the first encounter with a computer.

Eason (1989) states that “new users make extreme and unrealistic assumptions about the technology and are very nervous about their ability to cope with it. … The familiarization sessions before implementation... can be extremely valuable” (p. 236). To this effect, Eason considers the aim of the first session as a preparation “to set people up for learning,” rather than teaching the entire application in one day. Setting people up for learning means creating a learning environment and giving some directions for learners. It is facilitating learning and helping people learn by building their confidence.

In addition to initial training, computing requires continuous education and refresher courses. People who use two or more software packages and are more casual users need skills maintenance (Eason, 1989).

One reason the need for adult learning has become so important for end-user training is identified by Geisler (1992), who considers “every investment in information technology as a voyage into frustration” (p. 76). Defying the notion of easy to use and easy to learn, Geisler warned computer experts that the human problems in computing needed what he called the three T’s: time, training, and tolerance.

According to Thomas (1991), the main characteristics of learning are:

• learning takes time,
• learning is irreversible,
• learning cannot be done overnight by magic,
• learning is not coercible, and
• learning derives more from other people than from one person.

These characteristics cannot be easily developed by using advance interface, clicking the icon, or simply by asking the expert. Humanizing computer applications and making learning about computers possible demand moving beyond measuring computer anxiety, user resistance, and user satisfaction. The basic problem behind computer anxiety, user resistance, and user dissatisfaction is lack of skills, a lack of knowledge about computers, and lack of sound adult learning methods.

Lewis (1998) studied more than 650 adult basic education students who were traditionally characterized as having a low self-concept and negative educational experiences. The adult learning environment was credited as a major reason that Lewis found that the students were both interested in and comfortable with computers. According to Lewis, this environment was created by following “principles of good practice and teaching techniques that facilitate learning” (pp. 7–8). Some of these principles of good practice are:

• demystify the computer,
• start with the basics,
• attempt to ascertain the learner’s worst fears,
• recount your own personal experience as a beginning computer user, and
• avoid jargon or buzzwords.

The points that Lewis (1988) stated as principles of good practice involve creating a learning environment and moving learners smoothly through the learning process—in short, building learners’ self-efficacy. These principles are what Bronsema and Keen (1983, pp. 38-40) call educational intervention. Educational intervention is effectively helping people through the learning process. According to Bronsema and Keen, educational intervention involves showing commitment (p. 38), creating a forum for dialogue (p. 39), taking action and changing words into action, sequencing events (p. 40), and closing the cultural gap (p. 42). This is similar to Lewin’s (1947) change process of “unfreezing” to heighten awareness, clearing some misconceptions we have concerning technology; moving participants in the learning process slowly from basic to advanced concepts, and “refreezing” the process. From Lewis’ study, it was possible to see that the lack of such help during the learning and using process generate computer-phobia and user resistance. Unfortunately, so far, these approaches have rarely been used in computer training programs.

Lewis’ (1998) recommendations are comprehensive and include important issues raised by different researchers in this area. The suggestion by Lewis addresses important features of learning largely neglected by information technology experts and that give learners a difficult time learning and using computers. These important features—creating a learning environment to develop security and trust, building learners’ self-concept, respecting the individual differences of learners, recognizing learners’ fear, reassuring learners that it is ok to make mistakes, giving structure, and using different teaching methods—are all considered within the context of Lewis’ principles of good practice. Building learners’ confidence, in particular, when the learners are lower-level workers and older adults, is critical. These learners, though having the potential to learn to use computers, often lack confidence in their ability to master a new technology.

What is clear in Lewis’ (1998) approach to teaching and learning about computers is the way she approaches motivation and the need for mixing instructional methods. In Lewis’ approach, one can see that good teaching cannot be prepackaged, and an environment where cooperation and understanding of each other is possible can be developed, as far as the goal is to build comfort and confidence and to make computer training an opportunity rather than a threat. Her point is to make people ready for a computing journey using all possible methods. Another goal is to give structure and confidence, and provide a road map for further learning. Kraybil (1974) notes the importance of giving structure: “once the structure of a subject is exposed, an individual can then acquire other details throughout life with which to elaborate structure” (p. 335).

Lewis (1988) also identifies one important element about self-directed learning or computer-based training for adult learning. She recommends a mix of delivery patterns. Similar to Lewis, Steinberg (1989) indicates the value of mixing methods and the need for balance in approaching learning and teaching. Considering Lewis’ approach, understanding (accepting) the common attitudes and patterns that exist in use and learning environments, valuing the elemental learning needs of learners helps to make learning and using computers easy and possible.

Conclusions and Closing Questions

In the process of writing this article, I came across some questions consistent in most literature. These are:

1. Why is it that a statement such as: “I am very happy I took this course. It demystified the computer for me” is not very common, while training and user satisfaction are so common?
2. Do educators know why and understand how technology enhances or hinders learning when we recommend online learning or computer-based training?
3. How long will managers continue asking employees for polished documents without asking themselves how well they have helped employees learn to use computers?
4. How long will managers continue to say our technology is great but the ability to use it is limited?

These questions are not limited to the educational sector but are also relevant to business and industry. In one way or another, they are about the learning and use environments. Understanding these questions helps to see how users and learners look at, feel, and behave with a given technology. By examining these questions from different perspectives, we not only gain insights into the dynamics of learning and using technologies but also find new understanding of people, technology, and organizations. With this new understanding, the difference between what is technical and what is human for a clerk or computer expert can fuse together.

Empirical evidencesuggests that learning to use computers remains difficult for the following major reasons:

• lack of a learning environment in which learning and learners are seriously considered,
• lack of caution in technology introduction,
• lack of basic infrastructure for learning,
• lack of modest expectations as to what can be achieved, and
• lack of listening to and helping users.

Learning environments are not technical aids that make people learn or create learning. Environment delivers tips and can rekindle learning. Chilly climates, unsupportive learning and use environments, isolation, lack of confidence, and negative human relationship all block the will and ability to learn. Past experience has informed us that having a handful of highly educated and dedicated people in systems will not solve the current learning problems. Current problems in learning and using computers cannot be solved with one method and one perspective. So far using one method, one metaphor for learning, and one perspective has not created a learning or use environment that encourages people to learn. It is not more technology, faster processors, new browsers, and new software that will improve learning and using computers; rather, learning will improve because of more-nurturing learning environments, learning resources, support, and human-to-human interactions.

Seeking simple definitions and easily measurable variables and making behaviorally or cognitively based distinctions are not helpful to understand learning. Clear, explicit, and universal (overt) learning theory on how people learn and how learning takes place is still not available. Learning theories do not always have global significance. Learning is not a simple concept that can be treated with one metaphor and one point of view. In this context what is important is understanding the three pillars of learning (the learner, the teacher, and the environment) and their relation and interactions.

The lack of state-of-the-art technology and highly skilled technical staff makes effective learning and use of personal computers difficult. Leiss (1990) reports that mere possession of capital is no guarantee that the requisite talent can be obtained and organized. Organized capital needs organized learning environment. This means organizing adult learning, building a learning infrastructure, and setting realistic expectations for learning.

The need for adult learning is high, but too little attention is paid to learning at the workplace. With all the problems and misunderstandings, users and computer trainers are making sense of the computer. My personal experience as a trainer, researcher, and learner convinced me that, as stated by Pascale (1990) “all that is essential is courage, persistence, and management openness to learning” (p. 261).

This article has approached technology as a form of human cultural activity. In this context, information technology is considered to be more than a simple, ubiquitous, objective artifact; rather, it is endowed with purpose, problems, interest, and meanings. The focus in this approach was on understanding the claims and counter-claims regarding information technology and on learning and identifying major problems that are making the use and learning of computers difficult in business, industry, and education. To demystify computing, claims and counter-claims have been presented, with some problems in technical analysis in relation to learning. This article has also presented the gap between technical experts and end users, which prevents non-technical staff from understanding IT and technical staff from appreciating what is wanted.

Finally, I have presented ways in which learners can be encouraged to learn and how to provide opportunities for sharing experiences using adult learning principles and methods. To develop mutual understanding and to distinguish the myth from reality in computing environment, I suggest considering learning infrastructure, creating a learning environment, and using adult learning and teaching methods as an important part of investment in information technology.

Contributor

Kefyalew Mandefrot is a workplace education and training consultant. He completed his doctoral degree at the Graduate School of Education, University of Toronto. He holds an advanced diploma in programming and systems. His research interests include end-user computer training, adult learning, and ethnographic studies of information technology use environment with special interest for pedagogic and technical support. He is a member of Organizational Systems Research Association, and American and Canadian Adult Education Association.

Contact

Dr. Kefyalew Mandefrot
135 Rose Ave., Ste. 603
Toronto, ON M4X 1P1 Canada
mandefro5@ca.inter.net

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