A study to determine if experience with mouse-orientated computer games enhances the value that a user draws from an office package in a GUI environment

[摘要] English: Computer use is transforming the lives of many South Africans and is fast changing the way organisations communicate and do business. It also means that thousands of people in South Africa, from different cultures, races and age groups, are coming into contact with and using computers, either at home, at school or university, at the office and even in shopping malls.In order for a user to become computer literate he/she needs to know how to use the computer application effectively. This can only be achieved if he/she knows, inter alia, how to use the computer mouse as an input device.It has been noticed that many previously disadvantaged students (this includes all people that were discriminated against according to race and include all black and coloured people) have no idea of how to use a computer mouse. Even after they have been shown how to hold and move the mouse, many of them still struggle for some time to use the mouse effectively. They find it difficult to master the movement of the mouse cursor and they struggle to click the mouse buttons. Such a user may fall behind the rest of the students in a computer literacy class and often hinders the progress of the class as the lecturer has to give special attention to the struggling individual.The main focus of this study was to determine how long it takes a person to learn how to use a computer mouse effectively, and also, specifically in terms of mouse skills, whether mouse-orientated computer games enhance the value that a user draws from an office package in a graphical user interface environment.The study was done in two phases. In phase one the students played six mouse-orientated computer games. Three questions were investigated in this phase: - Does race play a significant role? - Do difficulty levels play a significant role? - Does computer use frequency play a significant role? Phase two of the study focused on only three of the computer games used in phase one, and also on Microsoft Word tests. Six questions were investigated in this phase: - Is there a difference between the average total completion times for the two MS Word tests within a session? - Is there a difference in the average total completion times between the different sessions? - Is there a difference between the average total marks for the MS Word tests in any session? - Is there a difference in the average total marks between the different sessions? - Does the student's score in any of the three games remain constant through different attempts and sessions? - Is there a correlation between the score that a user obtains in one of the games and the total completion time for the MS Word test in the different sessions?Various statistical tests were done on the captured data to answer the above questions. The tests included the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Tukey's test for the honestly significant differences and Spearman's correlation.This study proved that playing mouse-orientated computer games improves a user's fine motor skills and enhances his/her computer mouse hand-eye coordination. Furthermore it proved that three of the six mouse-orientated computer games enhanced the value that the users drew from the MS Word tests. A positive relationship between the scores of the games and the completion time of the MS Word tests was encountered indicating that a high score in the games compared with a short completion time in the MS Word tests.The games provide a relaxed and enjoyable environment for users to improve their computer mouse skills, and users are able to gain more value from an office package within a short time.

[发布机构] University of the Free State