COMPUTER SELF-EFFICACY - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 230

to diminish the user's confidence in his or her own ability to solve the problem, which then
prompted his or her call to the help desk. Users indicated that such support made them feel like
they had caused the problem or lacked the capability to understand what the problem/solution was
and therefore were demonstrating a low level of capability that diminished their confidence in
handling the problem in the future.
Furthermore, findings from observation and analysis of actual support calls indicated a signif-
icant relationship between the user's development of SCSE and the proportion of the call spent
in verbal modeling. The more time spent in explaining the situation or providing information to the
user, the higher the user's reported confidence in his or her ability to resolve the problem in the
future. This is because such support provides a better opportunity to transmit information, hold
the user's attention, and enable the user to use more cognitive processes over a longer period of
time to absorb the verbally modeled activities of the help desk analyst (Bandura, 1986). These
types of support contexts allow users a greater opportunity to develop and change SCSE towards
resolving the same or a similar problem on their own in the future.
Finally, various contextual aspects of support events were found to play a role in SCSE devel-
opment and other learning outcomes. Problem context was examined, and qualitative findings indi-
cate differences between calls involving technical problems (where analyst and user work together)
versus routine service requests (where the user must call the help desk to get a service such as a
password reset, activation of accounts, or setting up hardware repair appointments). During sup-
port events in which the user was calling with a problem requiring assistance, and the analyst and
user worked together to resolve the problem, the user experienced higher SCSE development and
learning outcomes. This finding indicates that not all support events are equally relevant to the
development of user SCSE. Users are more likely to learn and develop SCSE from calls to the help
desk in which the user is experiencing a more technical problem, rather than calls in which the user
asks the help desk to perform a standardized task for him or her. Additionally, user competence
plays a role: users who were assessed as higher in competence by those who observed their per-
formances during support reported learning less from support events.
In previous research, the role of support has been limited to views of its availability (Guimaraes,
1996; Mirani and King, 1994; Rainer et al., 1989) with outcomes of support primarily related to
satisfaction and the development of positive user beliefs and attitudes (Thompson et al., 1991;
Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). This program has extended our understanding of support by reveal-
ing that is it not just the availability of support but the manner in which it is provided to users that
holds the key to their SCSE development and learning.
More specifically, important support goals should go beyond satisfaction to incorporate the
development of the user's confidence in his or her ability to solve the problem on his or her own in
the future, and the new facts, information, and problem-solving strategies that the user can learn
from the provision of support. In particular, it is important that managerial practice take note of the
distinction here—support can lead to improved learning about problems and about technology, but
user SCSE plays an important mediating role. It is important to develop users' self-confidence in
their ability to resolve the same or similar problems on their own in the future, as that focus helps
develop the user's motivational efforts to attend to support so he or she can learn. To do this, organ-
izations should develop the problem-solving processes and verbal modeling skills used by the ana-
lysts. Support managers can develop analyst training programs that arm analysts with insight into
efficient and well-structured problem-solving processes, and with insight into how to deliver their
technical knowledge through easily comprehensible and detailed explanations during support.
Finally, support organizations should expand their measurement practices so that they actively
measure and manage users' self-efficacy development, learning, and satisfaction from support.