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Effects of Age and Instructions on Teaching Older Adults To Use ELDERCOMM, an Electronic Bulletin Board System.

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Title: Effects of Age and Instructions on Teaching Older Adults To Use ELDERCOMM, an Electronic Bulletin Board System.
Language: English
Authors: Morrell, Roger W., Park, Denise C., Mayhorn, Christopher B., Kelley, Catherine L.
Source: Educational Gerontology. Apr-May 2000 26(3):221-235.
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 15
Publication Date: 2000
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Adult Education, Aging (Individuals), Computer Literacy, Electronic Mail, Old Old Adults, Skill Development, Young Old Adults
ISSN: 0360-1277
Abstract: Adults aged 60-74 (n=30) and 75+ (n=30) were taught to use an electronic bulletin board system either with instructions (simple) or instructions preceded by a system explanation (expanded). The younger group were better at acquiring and retaining computer skills. Simple instructions facilitated skill development better than the expanded treatment. (SK)
Entry Date: 2000
Accession Number: EJ607612
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0003323524;EGR01APR.00;2000Jul17.17:11;v4.1</anid> <title id="AN0003323524-1">EFFECTS OF AGE AND INSTRUCTIONS ON TEACHING OLDER ADULTS TO USE ELDERCOMM, AN ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM </title> <p>This study focused on how to train older adults to perform computer procedures. Young-old (aged 60-74 years) and old-old (aged 75 years and older) adults were instructed on how to use ELDERCOMM, an electronic bulletin board system using one of two types of text-based instructions. The first set of directions consisted of illustrated, step-by-step instructions (simple condition). The second set of directions included the same step-by-step instructions as in the first set, but explanatory information about how the bulletin board system worked was added before the instructions for each of the procedures (expanded condition). Participants were tested on how well they learned to perform the computer tasks immediately after training and 1 week later. Study results revealed the following: (a) young-old adults outperformed old-old adults in their ability to acquire and retain computer skills, (b) simple instructions facilitated computer skill acquisition in both age groups relative to expanded instructions, and (c) measures of underlying cognitive mechanisms were predictive of performance depending on how participants were trained. </p> <p>Because of the proliferation of electronic technology in today's society, it is of considerable importance to understand how older adults can be effectively trained to use computers. Furthermore, training success appears to be a primary predictor of continued use of computers by older adults (Kelley, Morrell, Park, & Mayhorn, in press). Recent findings have shown that some training methods are better than others for teaching both young and older adults how to perform computer procedures (see Charness, Schumann, & Boritz, 1992; Gist, Rosen, & Schwoerer, 1988; and Kelley, Charness, & Mottram, 1994). In most studies of this type, results also have suggested that older adults take more time, make more mistakes, and require more assistance than younger adults (Charness & Bosman, 1992). The efficacy of different types of instructional formats for teaching older adults to use computers and other types of electronic devices has also been investigated. Echt, Morrell, and Park (1998) found little difference in performance of basic computer skills when older adults were trained with illustrated text-based instructions or with animated computer-based directions. They also demonstrated that young-old adults outperformed old-old adults in their ability to acquire basic computer skills. Results from Rogers, Fisk, Mead, Walker, and Cabrera (1996), however, suggested that online instructions facilitated performance of procedures on automated teller machines in older adults relative to other types of text-based or illustrated formats. </p> <p>A few studies in this area have focused on the quality of instructions presented to participants when teaching them to use computers. Teaching computer skills with expanded instructions composed of conceptual knowledge ("how-it-works" instructions) and procedural knowledge ("step-by-step" instructions) has been linked with superior performance of computer tasks relative to directions composed of step-by-step instructions alone in young adults (Allen, 1984; Goodwin & Sanati, 1986). Furthermore, expanded instructions for taking medications are better understood and remembered by both young and old adults than instructions in traditional prescription signature format (see Morrow & Leirer, in press, for a discussion). Thus, there is some evidence to suggest that instructions that contain more information (expanded or elaborated instructions) might facilitate comprehension of and memory for material relative to simplified versions. </p> <p>However, research in cognition and aging has demonstrated that age-related declines in the ability to comprehend text exist in some instances (Dixon, Hultsch, Simon, & von Eye, 1984). For example, because instructions for using computers usually are presented in text form, older adults might have more problems understanding them than younger adults. Most important, there also is evidence that indicates that older adults are less able to make inferences from recently presented information and to disregard irrelevant information relative to younger adults (Botwinick & Storandt, 1974; Hoyer, Rebok, & Sved, 1979). If more extraneous information is added to a set of instructions, it is possible that older adults might not be able to understand them as well as younger adults because of age-related declines in cognition. Furthermore, Morrell and Echt (1996, 1997) have argued that certain cognitive resources may play substantial roles in the ability of older individuals to acquire computer skills. In particular, the age differences in the performance of computer tasks that have been observed may be due at least in part to the age-related declines in working memory (the online mental capacity for processing verbal and spatial information; see Baddeley, 1986) or to age-related declines in perceptual speed (the speed at which mental operations are performed; Salthouse, 1996). Following instructions for learning how to use a computer may be reliant on working memory resources because references must be made back and forth between instructions and the task as with other tasks of this type (i.e., Morrell & Park, 1993). Older adults are slower than younger adults when cognitive tasks become more complex or require large amounts of mental processing (Hale, Myerson, & Wagstaff, 1987). Thus, it is also possible that measures of these constructs might be predictive of how well older adults acquire and retain computer skills. </p> <p>Therefore, this study was designed to address three major research questions: (a) Are there differences in the ability of young-old and old-old adults to acquire the skills necessary to operate an electronic bulletin board system? It was hypothesized that old-old adults would exhibit greater difficulty in retaining skills about how to use an electronic bulletin board system compared with young-old adults because of greater declines in cognitive ability in the older age group. (b) Does the type of information included in the instructions affect the ability of older adults to acquire the skills needed to use the bulletin board system? It was hypothesized that the simple instructions would facilitate retention of the computer procedures relative to the expanded instructions because the simple instructions would place fewer cognitive demands on the older learners than the expanded instructions. (a) Are measures of cognition predictive of how well computer skills are acquired by older adults? It was expected that measures of perceptual speed, verbal and spatial working memory, and text comprehension would be significant predictors of how well older adults retained computer skills over time. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-2"> METHOD </hd> <hd id="AN0003323524-3"> Participants </hd> <p>Thirty community-dwelling young-old (M= 68.6, SD = 3.8) and 30 old-old (M--79.9, SD--3.3) adults participated in this study. Each was paid $50. None of the participants had previous experience using a bulletin board system or the Internet. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire that consisted of two self-perceived health (Duke University, 1975) and other items about chronological age, education level, and number of medications currently being taken. Participants also completed the Shipley Vocabulary Test (Shipley, 1986) as a measure of verbal ability. There were no significant differences between the age groups on any of these items. Average scores are shown in Table 1. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-4"> Stimulus Materials </hd> <p>The illustrated manual format of the training materials utilized by Echt et al. (1998) was used to teach participants how to perform basic computer procedures before they received instruction on using the ELDERCOMM system. This manual was composed of three sections of instructions: (a) computer hardware; (b) computer software and icons, files, and folders; and (c) desktop management. Each unit first described a procedure in text, then illustrated the procedure. Practice was allowed for each procedure before the experimenter assessed how well the participants had learned the basic procedures. </p> <p>ELDERCOMM is an electronic communications system constructed by research staff at the University of Georgia from ResNova software (ResNova Software, Inc., 1993). Participants were presented with one of two types of instruction tools to teach them to use ELDERCOMM. One tool consisted of text and illustrations in manual form that demonstrated how to use the features of ELDERCOMM in a step-by-step manner (simple condition). The second tool was also an illustrated manual that contained the same step-by-step instructions as in the first manual. However, in addition, one or two pages of information about how each of the procedures on the bulletin board worked were inserted before each of the sets of instructions in this manual (expanded condition). </p> <p>Both of the instruction manuals directed participants how to use the different features of the ELDERCOMM system. These included (a) logging on and off the system; (b) using the two menu systems; (c) addressing, sending, and reading E-mail; (d) subscribing to, receiving, and sending messages to the 11 different ELDERCOMM discussion groups; and (e) communicating with the ELDERCOMM systems operator (sysop). All of the procedures were first described in text and presented using illustrations. Participants were then allowed to practice each of the procedures with the directions available. They then performed the same procedures on their own without the instructions before they were tested on how well they had learned the procedures. During the assessments, participants were required to log onto ELDERCOMM, perform 4 procedures similar to those taught (use the help menu, send an E-mail message, participate in a discussion group, and send a note to the ELDERCOMM sysop), and then log off the system. This resulted in an overall total of 28 separate steps that had to be performed without assistance or instructions available. The assessment exercises were identical across the two instruction conditions. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-5"> Procedure </hd> <p>All participants were tested individually. The participants were told that the experimenter would remain in the room with them but that they should work through the instruction materials on their own as much possible. Computer training was conducted in 3-hr sessions on each of three consecutive days. On Day 1, participants were trained on basic computer skills to ensure that poor basic skills would not interfere with learning how to perform procedures using the ELDERCOMM system. Participants also completed the demographic questionnaire and the Shipley Vocabulary Test (Shipley, 1986). </p> <p>During Day 2, participants were retrained on the basic skills that they had problems with on Day I and retested on their ability to perform all basic procedures. To equalize participants' basic computer abilities, retraining and testing continued until participants reached 90% accuracy on all basic procedures. Participants were also presented with measures of cognition on Day 2. First, participants completed the Backward Digit Span Test from the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale--Revised (WAIS-R; Wechsler, 1981) as a measure of verbal working memory. Second, two selections from the Nelson-Denny Form H Reading Test (Brown, Fishco, & Hanna, 1993), representing a measure of text comprehension, were administered. Third, participants completed the Size Judgment Test (Cherry & Park, 1993), a measure of spatial working memory. Finally, participants performed the Letter Comparison Task (Salthouse & Babcock, 1990) to obtain a measure of perceptual speed. Average scores on these items by age group are presented in Table 2. The age groups differed significantly only on the scores for the measure of perceptual speed, with the young-old adults performing better than the old-old adults, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>, 58) = 5.75, MSE = 41.08, p = .02. </p> <p>On Day, 3 participants were randomly assigned to one of the two instruction conditions--either simple or expanded instructions. This resulted in 15 young-old and 15 old-old participants receiving each type of instruction. In both instruction conditions, the participants read and worked through the instructions for each of the procedures at their own pace. Participants were tested on how well they remembered to perform procedures on the ELDERCOMM system immediately after training and again I week later. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-6"> RESULTS </hd> <hd id="AN0003323524-7"> Error Categories </hd> <p>Three types of dependent measures were recorded during the assessment sessions on the ELDERCOMM system: performance errors, motor control problems, and number of experimenter interventions. Performance errors included omission errors, commission errors, and wrong-action errors. An omission error indicated that a step in a procedure was left out. A commission error entailed including an inappropriate additional step in a procedure (such as opening a window when no such action was indicated in the instructions). Wrong-action errors represented a clear attempt at a step in a procedure that, however, was incorrectly executed (such as opening the wrong menu or clicking on the wrong icon). There were two types of motor control problems recorded: mouse control errors and clicking errors. Mouse control errors were errors that were committed as a direct consequence of difficulty in using the mouse (e.g., failure to double click quickly enough to execute an action). Committing a clicking error included making an arbitrary or superfluous mouse click unrelated to a procedure. Intervention errors consisted of two types of interactions with the experimenter during the assessments. Experimenter assistances were recorded when the experimenter had to demonstrate a procedure to a participant. The number of questions asked indicated the number of inquiries made of the experimenter during a procedure. In addition to these categories of errors, the amount of time (in minutes) participants required to perform the procedures in the immediate and delayed assessments also was recorded. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-8"> Data Scoring </hd> <p>Data scoring was accomplished by the experimenter recording errors as the computer tasks were performed during the immediate and delayed assessments. The sessions were also videotaped using Presenter Plus software, which recorded all movements on the computer screen. The scoring that took place during the assessments was verified by the same experimenter viewing the videotapes after the assessments were completed without the preliminary results available. To arrive at an index of rater reliability, intraclass correlations were computed (see Shrout & Fleiss, 1979). Correlations representing rater reliability between the dependent measures recorded during the assessments and when viewing the videotapes were .90 and .95 for performance errors, .92 and .97 for motor control problems, and .98 and .99 for interventions for the immediate and delayed assessments, respectively, suggesting an extremely high reliability in scoring. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-9"> Analyses on Performance of Computer Procedures </hd> <p>The three categories of dependent variables collected in the immediate and delayed assessments were subjected to 2 x 2 x 2 analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with age (young-old and old-old) and instruction condition (simple vs. expanded) as between-subjects variables and time of assessment (immediate vs. delayed) as the within-subjects variable. </p> <p>Age, instruction condition, and time of assessment influenced the number of performance errors made by participants and the number of experimenter interventions requested by the participants in some instances, but no significant effects were observed for motor control problems experienced across the assessments. A significant main effect for age occurred for performance errors, with old-old adults making more errors than young-old adults across the two assessments, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref2">1</reflink>, 56)= 4.07, MSE = 4.72, p = .049 (young-old M= 1.37, SD = 1.10; old-old M = 2.17, SD = 2.03). Significant main effects for instruction condition and time of assessment were also observed in the analyses of performance errors. More performance errors were committed and more experimenter interventions were required by both age groups in the expanded condition than in the simple condition, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref3">1</reflink>, 56) = 7.23, MSE = 4.72, p-.009; F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref4">1</reflink>, 56) = 4.12, MSE = 12.61, p= .047, respectively (performance errors: simple M = 1.23, SD- 1.24; expanded M- 2.30, SD = 1.88; interventions: simple M = 3.07, SD = 2.28; expanded M = 4.38, SD - 2.82). A greater number of performance errors and interventions were also recorded during the delayed assessment as compared with the immediate assessment in both groups, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref5">1</reflink>, 56)= 12.03, MSE = 2.03, p = .018; F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref6">1</reflink>, 56)- 29.38, MSE = 3.88, p = .0001, respectively (performance errors: immediate M = 1.45, SD = 1.62; delayed M - 2.08, SD = 2.21; interventions: immediate M = 2.75, SD = 2.81; delayed M = 4.70, SD = 3.18). Finally, the two-way interaction between instruction condition and time of assessment was significant for number of experimenter interventions. This occurred because participants receiving the simple instructions were better able to perform the computer exercises I week later without help than were participants in the expanded condition, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref7">1</reflink>, 56) = 5.15, MSE = 3.88, p = .027 (immediate/ simple: M = 2.50, SD = 2.62; delayed/simple: M=3.63, SD =2.64; immediate/expanded: M = 3.00, SD = 3.01; delayed/expanded: M = 5.77, SD = 3.35). </p> <p>A 2 x 2 ANOVA was also performed on the amount of time taken to perform the procedures in the immediate and delayed assessments, with age (young-old vs. old-old) and instruction condition (simple vs. expanded) treated as between-subjects variables. Results revealed significant main effects of age and instruction condition for the amount of time required to perform the procedures in the immediate assessment. Old-old adults took more time than young-old adults to complete the immediate assessment (15.7 rain vs. 10.97 rain), F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref8">1</reflink>, 59) = 15.69, MSE = 21.42, p-.0002. Individuals trained with the simple instructions also took more time to perform the procedures than those trained with the expanded instructions (14.67 rain vs. 12 rain), F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref9">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref10">59</reflink>) -4.98, MSE = 21.42, p = .03. There were no significant main or interaction effects of age or instruction condition observed for time taken to complete the delayed assessment. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-10"> Cognitive Analyses </hd> <hd id="AN0003323524-11"> Correlations </hd> <p>Initially, a set of zero-order correlations was generated between the measures of text comprehension, perceptual speed, and spatial and verbal working memory; the number of performance and motor errors made; and the number of interventions required by participants during the delayed assessment. The results suggested that there was a relationship between cognitive function and performance and that some of the underlying cognitive mechanisms were more influential than others in predicting retention of computer procedures 1 week later. All of the measures of cognition were significantly related to the number of interventions required by the participants (text comprehension, -.35; perceptual speed, -.32; spatial working memory, -.37; verbal working memory, -.28), whereas only the measures of perceptual speed (-.37) and spatial working memory (-.26) were significantly related to the number of performance errors made during the delayed assessment. None of the cognitive measures were related to the number of motor control errors observed. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-12"> Regression Analyses </hd> <p>Individual sets of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted on the number of performance errors made by participants and on the number of interventions participants required at delayed assessment for each instruction condition (simple vs. expanded) according to the following plan (outlined in Tables 3 and 4). In Step 1, chronological age was entered alone to determine how much variance could be accounted for by this variable. Chronological age was also entered first in the later steps to control for its effect when the cognitive variables were entered. Because the measures of perceptual speed and spatial and verbal working memory were shown to be moderately or highly correlated with each other (ranging from .31 to .51), all of the scores on these measures were summed in z-score form to produce one overall measure of cognitive resources. This aggregate measure was entered after chronological age in Step 2 because measures of cognitive resources were expected to be the best predictors of the ability of the older adults to acquire relatively simple computer skills or to learn skills from instructions that require few cognitive demands. In Step 3, the measure of text comprehension was entered after chronological age and the aggregate measure of cognitive resources because this global measure of cognition was expected to account for unique variance above and beyond that accounted for by the first two variables when the cognitive demands of the computer tasks or instructions increased. </p> <p>In general, findings from the regression analyses suggested that age and cognitive function accounted for significant amounts of variance in the number of performance errors made and interventions required by participants, and this was dependent on how an individual was trained. Results indicated that variance in performance errors and interventions required for simple instructions was largely accounted for by resource measures, as age accounted for significant amounts of variance in Step I and text comprehension accounted for only a modest change in R<sups>2</sups> in Step 3 in each of the equations. However, for the expanded instruction condition, adding text comprehension into the regression equation for interventions required by participants resulted in a substantial change in R<sups>2</sups> (approximately 11%) suggesting that text comprehension was important for complex but not for simple instructions. Additionally, there was more age-related variance present in the expanded instructions condition (R<sups>2</sups> = .126 and .158) than in the simple instruction condition (R<sups>2</sups> = .005 and .068). </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-13"> DISCUSSION </hd> <p>The results of this study provide substantial information about how to train older adults to use computers and answer the research questions presented in the introduction section of this article: </p> <p>(a) Are there differences in the ability of young-old and old-old adults to acquire the skills necessary to operate an electronic bulletin board system? In general, the young-old adults in this study appeared to be better able to perform the computer tasks required to use the ELDERCOMM bulletin board system than did the old-old adults. This result is as expected and is consistent with past research (e.g., Echt et al., 1998). </p> <p>(b) Does the type of information included in the instructions affect the ability of older adults to acquire the skills needed to use the bulletin board system? As hypothesized, the findings of this study indicated that simple rather than expanded instructions facilitated retention of computer procedures for both groups of older adults. It should be noted, however, that the number of performance errors (2.08) and the number of interventions (4.70) was quite low for the groups of older adults during the delayed assessment. Thus, this provides some evidence that older adults might be able to retain a relatively high proportion of computer skills over time when adequately trained. </p> <p>(c) Are measures of cognition predictive of how well computer skills are acquired by older adults ? As predicted, the results from the regression analyses demonstrated that underlying cognitive mechanisms are related to how well older adults retain computer skills. This relationship, however, may be dependent on the cognitive demands of the training session. Results from the regression analyses indicated that there was no significant age-related variance present for either performance errors or interventions required when participants were presented with simple instructions. In addition, for simple instructions, cognitive resources accounted for a significant amount of variance, but text comprehension had only a weak relationship for performance errors or the number of interventions required by participants. Thus, it appears that when instructions are simple, primary cognitive ability is the major predictor of retention of computer skills and neither age nor text comprehension abilities are very important. When instructions are more complex, however, the results are different. For the expanded condition, there was significant age-related variance present, with age and text comprehension ability explaining more variance for the number of interventions required by participants than cognitive resources. </p> <p>Thus, several major conclusions can be drawn from these findings. First, it may be better to use simple instructions when training older adults to perform computer or similar tasks because they place less demands on cognitive abilities. Second, age-related declines in certain cognitive mechanisms may be responsible, at least in part, for some of the age differences that have been observed in computer task performance in previous research. It also is possible that the relationship of measures of cognition to computer task performance in older adults may be dependent on training and task conditions. Finally, this study provided additional reliable evidence that older adults can acquire and retain computer skills over time. </p> <p>This research was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant AC11715-03 to Roger W. Morrell as a research component of the Center for Applied Cognitive Research on Aging at the University of Michigan. The research was conducted at the University of Georgia. We thank Kathryn Fowler, Director, and the older adults who participated in programs at the Athens Community Council on Aging, Athens, Georgia, for their valuable assistance with this project. We also thank Joan Bennett for her statistical assistance in the preparation of this article. </p> <p>Address correspondence to Roger W. Morrell, PhD, Assistant Director, Gerontology Center, University of Georgia, 100 Candler Hall, Athens, Georgia 30602-1775, USA. E-mail: rmorrell@geron.uga.edu. </p> <hd id="AN0003323524-14">TABLE 1 Average Scores (Avg.) and Standard Deviations for Demographic Items by Age Group</hd> <ct id="AN0003323524-15"> Legend for Chart: A - Item B - Young-old (n = 30) Avg. C - Young-old (n = 30) SD D - Old-old (n = 30) Avg. E - Old-old (n = 30) SD A B C D E Education[a] 4.63 1.43 4.70 1.32 No. medications 1.83 1.58 2.16 2.17 Perceived health No. 1[b] 3.46 0.97 3.33 0.84 Perceived health No. 2[b] 3.73 1.05 3.76 0.90 [a] 1 = 8 years, completed grade school; 2 = 9 = 11 years, some high school; 3 = 12 years, completed high school; 4 = 13-15 years, some college; 5 = 16 years, college degree; 6 = more than 16 years. [b] 1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent.</ct> <hd id="AN0003323524-16">TABLE 2 Average Score (Avg.) and Standard Deviations for Cognitive Variables by Age Group</hd> <ct id="AN0003323524-17"> Legend for Chart: A - Variable B - Young-old (n = 30) Avg. C - Young-old (n = 30) SD D - Old-old (n = 30) Avg. E - Old-old (n = 30) SD A B C D E Vocabulary[a] 34.30 5.86 34.97 4.43 Verbal working memory[b] 7.83 2.23 7.20 2.17 Spatial working memory[c] 4.17 0.55 4.05 0.55 Text comprehension[d] 8.60 1.57 8.16 1.70 Perceptual speed[e] 31.40 6.44 27.43 6.37 [a] Total score from the Shipley Vocabulary Test (Shipley, 1986). [b] Number of trials from Backward Digit Span WAIS-R subscale (Wechsler, 1981). [c] Total score from Size Judgment Task (Cherry & Park, 1993). [d] Total score from Nelson-Denny Reading Test selections (Brown, Fishco, & Hanna, 1993). [e] Total score from Letter Comparison Task (Salthouse & Babcock, 1990).</ct> <hd id="AN0003323524-18">TABLE 3 Outline of Multiple Regression Analyses Conducted on Performance Errors by Instruction Condition at Delayed Assessment</hd> <ct id="AN0003323524-19"> Legend for Chart: A - Predictor B - Beta C - Delta R<sups>2</sups> D - Cumulative R<sups>2</sups> E - F A B C D E Simple Instructions Step 1 Age .069 .005 .135 Step 2 Age -.024 Resource measures -.382[*] .137[*] .142 2.23 Step 3 Age -.057 Resource measures -.452[*] Text comprehension .118 .009 .151 1.54 Expanded Instructions Step 1 Age .355[*] 1.26 4.03 Step 2 Age .304[*] Resource measures -.235 .052 .178 2.93 Step 3 Age .280 Resource measures -.087 Text comprehension -.263 .045 .223 2.50 Note. Age = chronological age; Resource measures = sum of scores on measures of perceptual speed, spatial working memory, and verbal working memory (in z-score form); Text comprehension = score on measure of text comprehension. [*] p < .05.</ct> <hd id="AN0003323524-20">TABLE 4 Outline of Multiple Regression Analyses Conducted on Interventions Required by Instruction Condition at Delayed Assessment</hd> <ct id="AN0003323524-21"> Legend for Chart: A - Predictor B - Beta C - Delta R<sups>2</sups> D - Cumulative R<sups>2</sups> E - F A B C D E Simple Instructions Step 1 Age .261 .068 2.050 Step 2 Age .135 Resource measures -.514[*] .249[*] .317 6.25[*] Step 3 Age .156 Resource measures -.468[*] Text comprehension .077 .004 .321 4.09[*] Expanded Instructions Step 1 Age .397[*] .158 5.24[*] Step 2 Age .359[*] Resource measures -.174 .029 .187 3.09 Step 3 Age .322[*] Resource measures -.055 Text comprehension -.406[*] .108[*] .295 3.61[*] Note. Age = chronological age; Resource measures = sum of scores on measures of perceptual speed, spatial working memory, and verbal working memory (in z-score form); Text comprehension = score on measure of text comprehension. [*] p < .05. [**] p < .01.</ct> <hd1 id="AN0003323524-22"> REFERENCES </hd1> <p>Allen, R. B. (1984). Cognitive factors in human interaction with computers. Behavior and Information Technology, 1,257-258. </p> <p>Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working memory. Oxford, England: Clarendon. </p> <p>Botwinick, H. R., & Storandt, M. (1974). Memory, relation function and age. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. </p> <p>Brown, J. I., Fishco, V. V., & Hanna, G. (1993). The Nelson-Denny Reading Test. Chicago: Riverside. </p> <p>Charness, N., & Bosman, E. A. (1992). Human factors and aging. In F. I. M. Craik & T. A. Salthouse (Eds.), The handbook of aging and cognition (pp. 495-545). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. </p> <p>Charness, N., Schumann, C., & Boritz, G. (1992). Training older adults in word processing: Effects of age, training technique, and computer anxiety. International Journal of Technology and Aging, 5, 79-105. </p> <p>Cherry, K. E., & Park, D. C. (1993). 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WAIS-R Manual: Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale--Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation. </p> <aug> <p>By Roger W. Morrell, Gerontology Center, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA; Denise C. Park, University of Michigan; Christopher B. Mayhorn, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA and Catherine L. Kelley, University of Michigan </p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib1" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib59" firstref="ref10"></nolink>
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  Data: Effects of Age and Instructions on Teaching Older Adults To Use ELDERCOMM, an Electronic Bulletin Board System.
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Morrell%2C+Roger+W%2E%22">Morrell, Roger W.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Park%2C+Denise+C%2E%22">Park, Denise C.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Mayhorn%2C+Christopher+B%2E%22">Mayhorn, Christopher B.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kelley%2C+Catherine+L%2E%22">Kelley, Catherine L.</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Gerontology%22"><i>Educational Gerontology</i></searchLink>. Apr-May 2000 26(3):221-235.
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Adult+Education%22">Adult Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Aging+%28Individuals%29%22">Aging (Individuals)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Computer+Literacy%22">Computer Literacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Electronic+Mail%22">Electronic Mail</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Old+Old+Adults%22">Old Old Adults</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Skill+Development%22">Skill Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Young+Old+Adults%22">Young Old Adults</searchLink>
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  Data: 0360-1277
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  Data: Adults aged 60-74 (n=30) and 75+ (n=30) were taught to use an electronic bulletin board system either with instructions (simple) or instructions preceded by a system explanation (expanded). The younger group were better at acquiring and retaining computer skills. Simple instructions facilitated skill development better than the expanded treatment. (SK)
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  Data: 2000
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      – SubjectFull: Old Old Adults
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