Use of Paper-Based Support Tools to Aid the Acquisition of Cognitive Skills During Unsupervised Practice

This paper describes how graduate students used paper-based support tools to help them acquire a complex cognitive skill during unsupervised practice, and explains why the tools were able to support the practice. The paper also explains how to design such tools and describes a comparable computer-based performance support system. Ohlsson’s (1996) theory of learning from performance errors states that people learn a skill by detecting and correcting errors while performing the skill. Learners must have sufficient initial competence and an informative task environment in order to detect and correct errors and make sound decisions. The support tools were successful because they supplied learners with initial competence and an informative task environment. Tools that support learner errortrapping are more likely to help learners eventually perform without support than systems that correct errors for the learners.