Following the instructions that I received through the helpful research of the APP staff, I disconnected the power, disassembled the back of the oven, and accessed the hidden element. This involved bending parts of the sheet metal and cutting the insulation, so I was very apprehensive about doing this. Once I exposed the compartment that contains the element, I had difficulty extracting the old part and was really nervous about pulling hard to extract it - until I saw the damaged element. It was deformed and was broken in several places. The new element went in easily, following the instructions.
This took a lot of time but that was mostly because I called twice to confirm that the instructions were correct and I was very apprehensive about cutting the insulation and bending the sheet metal. The actual repair itself took under an hour. The challenge I faced was fear of ruining the oven if I misunderstood the directions, not anything technical about removing screws, panels, and parts.
By the way, I was told that I could not check to see if the element was 'good' using a multimeter unless the element was uninstalled, but I found the Ohm reading to be the same for the new element prior to installation and all immediately after installation before I reconnected the wires, so perhaps it is possible to test the element while it is still in the stove.