On the job usability for database manuals: meeting users' workplace strategies for learning data retrieval tasks

Summary form only given. Research that focuses on the educational needs of workers who are learning to operate database applications is being carried out. Specifically, attention is being given to the problem-solving strategies that users in a workplace employ in complex data retrieval tasks, such as formatting reports, sorting records, selecting subsets of records, and relating records from two or more databases. The investigation has two dimensions: analyzing workers' actual learning styles and cognitive strategies for on-the-job tasks and analyzing the information, knowledge, and conceptual representations required for various types of complex problems. The data obtained are intended to be a starting point for designing content and terminology in user manuals that truly accord with worker's actual processes and language of learning and performance.<>