Abstract This article comments on the study "The Effects of Explanation Type and User Involvement on Learning From and Satisfaction With Expert Systems," by Paul John Steinbart and Wilton L. Accola, published in the present issue of the "Journal of Information Systems." Organizations, including public accounting firms, have expended substantial resources develop expert systems (ES). Reasons cited for developing an ES have included improving the consistency of decision making, improving the quality of decisions, and speeding up leaning by novices who are involved with making expert judgements. Steinbart and Accola investigated the relative effectiveness of knowledge transfer different types of ES. In their study, they manipulated explanation format and user involvement with the decision outcome. In the study, rather than being involved in the decision, users strictly evaluated the decision after the fact. The involvement turned out to be more of a punishment because the users were required to do extra work as a result of the involvement. Subjects were told that they were using the ES to get experience using an ES. Therefore, they had no reason to believe they would be tested on anything related to the function performed by the ES.
Ronald M. Young (Tue,) studied this question.