immediately. The form of her explanation of how the correct answer was
derived indicates that the previous action of correcting the slide has become
fluent, turning into an operation. So, as the red bird finished telling the rule
(which required increasing the swings area, now consisting of twelve blocks,
by one third or one fourth, whichever gives more blocks), Cherry started
counting:
61. Cherry: One, two, three, four... [counting the blocks of the swings] ...twelve.
So did she [the red bird] say one fourth?
62. Observer: She said one third or one fourth, whichever gives you more
blocks.
63. Cherry: One third [with certainty].
64. Observer: How many blocks does that give you?
65. Cherry: Four.
66. Observer: So how did you find that?
67. Cherry: Twelve divided by three.
68. Observer: And how much does one fourth give you?
69. Cherry: One fourth... three...
70. Observer: Ok, so between the two which gives you more blocks?
71. Cherry: One third... yeah.
As the orientation phase is clear right away, the observer continues by asking
about the execution phase. When the robot has finally placed all four blocks
and is ready to click on the red button, Cherry is asked if she thinks what the
robot had done was right. She responded yes with certainty and her response
was confirmed by the appearance of the swings. According to Kuuti, this kind
of action-operation dynamic is a fundamentally typical feature of human
development. For an individual to become more skilled in something,
operations must be developed so that someone’s scope of actions can become
broader as the execution itself becomes more fluent []. The question posed by
this research is whether the interactive properties of a VE, e.g. cues and
system feedback, can enable this transformation from conscious actions into
operations, where planning and problem solving will have faded from the
consciousness.
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