ABSTRACT
In a complex, multi-task environment, it is advantageous to teach general timesharing skills or to teach special timesharing strategies. Although this procedure has been proposed as one that would enhance skill instruction, it would be consistent with our hypothesis that timesharing skills must be practiced if the data show that fractionation impedes learning. There is some possibility that the acquisition of timesharing skills can be enhanced through techniques that teach generalizable timesharing skills prior to practice on the criterion task. This chapter suggests a need to develop instructional methods that will reduce resource loads in early learning without disrupting the acquisition of timesharing skills. The timesharing hypothesis predicts a trend opposite to that predicted by the resource hypothesis. The notion that strategies in allocating and switching attention contribute to improved timesharing performance has received support from three experiments.
