Extracting and using procedural knowledge in a CAD task

The declarative and procedural knowledge, or cognitive strategies, used by expert and novice CAD operators on a 3D design task are determined in order to understand how training and management of CAD operators could affect this knowledge. Results indicate that novices were variable in performance not because of differences in declarative knowledge (on which they were trained) but because of differences in procedural knowledge (on which no training was given). The design expert could transfer procedural knowledge from other systems to the CAD system tested. The system expert could perform fast, because of the highly developed declarative knowledge, without thinking about the strategies. This research indicates the need for attention by managers of CAD systems to procedural knowledge training for system experts and novice CAD operators; declarative knowledge training can be emphasized for design experts