This three-part volume provides a summary, for use by practitioners, of a project concerned with how novices learn to become creative educational computer users. The first chapter examines techniques for increasing the novice's understanding of computers and computer programming, and specifically analyzes the potential usefulness of five recommendations for the design of computer literacy curricula. For each recommendation, a statement of the issue, an example, relevant background, and a brief review of the relevant research literature are provided. In the second chapter, a framework is presented for describing users' knowledge of how a simple 4-function calculator operates, and data on individual differences among novices and experts in their conceptions of a calculator's internal operations for various sequences are summarized. The third chapter provides a summary of a study in which 30 undergraduates learned BASIC programming language through a self-paced mastery manual and were tested on their mental models for the execution of each of nine BASIC statements. A catalog is then presented of beginning programmer's conceptions of the internal functions of the computer for each of the BASIC statements based on test results. Each section includes tables and references. (LMM)