Online Behavior Modeling: An Effective and Affordable Software Training Method

Abstract

Organizations need effective and affordable software training. In face-to-face settings, behavior modeling (BM) is an effective, but expensive, training method. Can BM be employed effectively, and more affordably, for software training in the online environment? An experiment was conducted to compare the effectiveness of online BM with that of face-to-face (F2F) BM for software training. Results indicate that online BM and F2F BM provide essentially the same outcomes in terms of knowledge near transfer, immediate knowledge far transfer, delayed knowledge far transfer, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and satisfaction. Observed differences were not significant, nor were their patterns consistent, despite sufficient power in the experimental design to detect meaningful differences. These results suggest that organizations should consider online BM as a primary method of software training.