Introduction

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Cognitive skills play a critical role in how individuals perform their tasks in today's knowledge-based economy. Employers have identified competent spreadsheet skills as one of the most beneficial, fundamental computer literacy skills a worker can possess following word processing skills (see Davis & Leitch, 1988; O'Leary, 1989; Coy & O'Grady, 1992; Heagy & Gallum, 1994; Davis, 1997; AAA, 2000). However, it has been well documented that spreadsheet models developed by end users contain surprisingly high error rates (e.g., Brown & Gould, 1987; Davis & Ikin, 1987; Cragg & King, 1993; Janvrin & Morrison, 1996; Panko & Halverson, 1996; Panko & Havlerson, 1997; Panko & Sprague, 1998). Spreadsheet errors can have a dramatic effect on the performance and decision process of end users.

We develop a framework and report the results of empirical tests that suggest spreadsheet training will influence four cognitive skills, namely logical reasoning, spatial visualization ability, mnemonic skill, and sequencing ability, and that these cognitive skills will influence the errors in spreadsheet models.

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