Cromatografía en capa fina

How is Excel taught at the two institutions considered in this thesis? At the course at RH the instructor stands in front of the class and explains important features of Excel that they (participants) need to know

Chapter 7: Conclusion

before starting with the assignments. He shows them on his computer which is displayed at a canvas in the front of the classroom. He continues with showing how to do a few computations, and the participants repeat the actions. Then the instructor gives them some assignments to do on their own. When they are busy doing the assignments the instructor walks around to see how they are doing and answering questions. When most participants have finished the assignment he begins explaining the next subject. While the instructor explains, the participants do what he does. That way some have problems following both what the instructor does and doing so themselves, and therefore have problems remembering how to do the assignment.

At Oslo Katedralskole the teacher and the students had gone through the material together in an earlier class. This was done in another class room without computers. All the students knew what they were going to do and the teacher had only to get them started. When they worked with the assignments, the teacher walked around helping those who had questions.

There are similarities to how RH and Oslo Katedralskole teach spreadsheets. The greatest difference lies in that at the school the students have more time to spend on the subjects. Its duration is a whole year compared to the course at RH, which lasts only two days.

The participants’ work in focus

Herskin focus on motivating the participants to use the program when they are back at work. And he also points out that the course should be made to focus directly on the participants’ work. In the article “Why Jonny can’t or won’t spreadsheet”, Carlsson (1989) concludes that the participants expectations of the spreadsheet training was not met, and that this affected the participants’ use of spreadsheets. The training had not showed them how to use the spreadsheet program in their work. In Carlsson’s study the course was a two-day keystroke- and function- oriented course. Carlsson states in his article that “no attempt was made to link use of the SP to the participants’ jobs’”. He further suggests that linking training to the participants’ jobs will make the expectations to the system more realistic. And more realistic expectations make it easier to have better attitude towards the system.

This is an important factor which B. Heitmann also pointed out. At the course at RH the instructor begins the course by asking why the

Chapter 7: Conclusion

participants have signed up for the class and what they expect or want to learn during the course. He asked them to tell him what they worked with and give examples of what they used Excel for in their work. But because the participants all came from different departments at RH, the training could not be linked to each of their work.

The background level of the participants

Larmerud (1999) sees the precondition of the participants as an important factor in quality assuring a computer program course. The different levels the participants have before attending a computer program course may cause some participants being bored while others struggle to keep up with the instructor. This means that it is probable that the participant do not understand the content of the computer program course. She also points out that some might feel embarrassed to admit that they do not master computers as much as they feel society demands of them.

The participants at the course at RH showed that they were unsure of how to use the variables given in an assignment to come up with the correct answer. Brigitte Heitmann pointed this out as a problem for some of the participants. They did not have the background knowledge of mathematics and statistics needed to learn Excel fully. One participant wrote that he had to read up on the statistics, because he found that it was the statistic that was the problem, and not Excel.

When observing the courses at RH I observed that some of the participants seemed bored. The course was put on a level which was too basic for some of them – too easy. Several spent time reading news on the Internet or checking e-mail. One participant told me that he actually wanted to go to the higher level course, but because he had not attended a ground level course, the head of his department wanted him to attend this before attending a higher level course. He was bored through the course. He did not do anything to disturb the others, but finished the assignments and reading news on the Internet while waiting for the instructor to move on in the course.

Did this have an impact on the other participants? Did they too detect that the others gave the impression that the course was too easy? And if so: How did that make them feel? If they felt that the course was a little

Chapter 7: Conclusion

difficult and the others thought it was easy- did that make them feel inadequate?

Galletta et al. (1995) investigated if peer influence had an impact on users who learned to perform a new task. Their investigation shows that positive and neutral word of mouth (WOM) (see section 2.4) has little impact, but negative WOM had impact on the learning outcome. Their proposed explanation of this outcome is that (1) the positive WOM might not be as convincing as the negative, or (2) that positive WOM is considered as a disturbance and can be comprehended as negative for the other participants. Are some participants disturbed by others who are surfing the internet instead of paying attention to the instructor? Or someone who leaves the class after announcing that she “just wants to get some coffee”? According to Galletta’s investigation this could influence the other participants.

7.4 Question 4: What do the trainers think is the