Different experiences, different effects: a longitudinal study of learning a computer program in a network environment

Students’ previous computer experience has been widely considered an important factor affecting subsequent computer performance. However, little research has been done to examine the contributions of different types of computer experience to computer performance at different time points. The present study compared the effects of four types of computer experience on 30 graduate students’ learning of a statistical program over one semester. Among the four types of computer experience, students’ earlier experience of using computer network systems was found to affect their initial performance of learning the statistics program, but the experience of using statistical programs, the experience of email programs, and the length of using computers did not. These findings suggest complex relationships between students’ computer experience and their computer performance and have implications for both learning and teaching computer programs and understanding the transfer of learning.