The effect of computer-assisted instruction on the attitudes of college students toward computers and chemistry

The purpose of this study was to see whether college students' attitudes toward computers and chemistry would be affected by using CAI materials in a chemistry course, and whether there would be any difference for students of different sex. Students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, pre- and posttests were given to both groups, and the data were analyzed using 2-way analysis of covariance. It was found that the attitude of women toward computers was improved by using CAI. No change in attitude toward chemistry was found.     

Student performance and attitudes using personalized mathematics instruction

This study investigated the effects of personalized instruction on the achievement and attitudes of Taiwanese students on two-step mathematics word problems. A total of 136 fourth-graders in a Taiwanese public school participated in the study. Subjects initially completed a Student Survey on which they chose their favorite foods, sports, stores, classmates, and other selections. The most popular items were then used to create personalized math word problems for the pretest, personalized instructional program, and posttest. Subjects were blocked by ability based on their pretest scores and were randomly assigned within ability levels to either a personalized or nonpersonalized version of the print-based instructional program. After finishing the program, subjects completed a student attitude survey and the posttest. A repeated-measures univariate analysis of variance revealed that subjects in the personalized treatment made significantly greater pretest-to-posttest gains than those in the nonpersonalized treatment. Subjects also performed significantly better on the personalized pretest and posttest problems than on the nonpersonalized problems. Personalized subjects and higher-ability students both had significantly more positive attitudes toward the instructional program than did their nonpersonalized and lower-ability counterparts. This research was conducted while he was a doctoral student at Arizona State University.     

Comparison of computer-assisted instruction and print drill performance: A research note

A comparison of the performance of two groups of third-grade students practicing division problems is used to assess the effect of a commercial computer-assisted instruction (CAI) drill program on learning. The progress of the experimental group, who used the computer drill program, is compared with a similar group of students using a conventional print drill method. The data demonstrate that after five weeks of practice, no significant differences existed in the achievement level of either the experimental group or the control group. The findings further suggest that use of computer drill materials may be no more effective than print drill materials for assisting third-grade students to achieve proficiency level in learning division of whole numbers.     

Effects of cooperative learning plus inquiry method on student learning and attitudes: a comparative study for engineering economic classrooms

In the Iranian higher education system, including engineering education, effective implementation of cooperative learning is difficult because classrooms are usually crowded and the students never had a formal group working background in their previous education. In order to achieve the benefits of cooperative learning in this condition, this paper proposes a combination of cooperative learning and inquiry method. The method is implemented by grouping students in a way that the learning procedure is done in non-official class sessions by each group, while the inquiry method is done in the regular programmed class sessions. The study is performed in Islamic Azad University and the methods are implemented in two engineering economic classes with different numbers of students in each working group. The results are compared with a control class in which traditional teaching style is implemented. The results of analysis show simultaneous improvement of learning and behavioural attitudes of the students with cooperative learning plus inquiry method in the classroom with a fewer number of students in each working group.     

Effects of classroom evaluation strategies on student achievement and attitudes

This study investigated the effects of teacher evaluation and the combination of teacher evaluation and student self-evaluation on student performance and attitudes. Participants in the study were 189 Latvian high school students and their six teachers. The six teachers were assigned to one of three treatment conditions: (a) no evaluation, (b) teacher evaluation, and (c) self-evaluation plus teacher evaluation. All groups completed a 12-lesson instructional program on how to conduct experiments and produce research reports. Students in the teacher-evaluation group received teacher evaluation on their initial research reports. Students in the self-plus-teacher evaluation group self-evaluated their reports and received teacher evaluation on them. The no-evaluation group received no formal evaluation instructions. Students in the teacher-evaluation and the self-plus-teacher evaluation groups received significantly higher ratings on their final projects than those in the no-evaluation group. However, the no-evaluation group had more favorable attitudes toward the program than the other two groups, while the self-plus-teacher evaluation group was significantly more confident of their ability to independently conduct future research experiments. This study was conducted while Dr. Olina was a student at Arizona State.     

Effects of psycholinguistic instruction on spelling performance

Two studies were conducted in which phonology‐based instructional strategies designed for improving spelling skills of elementary school children were compared against instruction strategies that relied only on visual exposure of words. The first study involved a total of 93 children. Of these, 46 were instructed by drawing their attention to the psycholinguistic nature of their spelling errors. The remaining 47 children in the comparison group were shown the correct version of all the words. In study II 15 children were placed in a treatment group and were taught phoneme awareness, and 15 children were placed in a comparison group and were exposed to printed words only. In both studies, posttests showed that children taught through psycholinguistic and phoneme awareness methods significantly outperformed the visual training groups. Further, these gains were retained after a period of 2 weeks. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

高校生物化学课程多媒体辅助教学的研究与探索

为了适应现代教育技术发展和教学改革的需要,CAI课件广泛应用于生物化学教学中。本文结合生物化学课程及多媒体教学的特点,分析了CAI课件应用于生物化学课程教学中的优势和目前使用中普遍存在的问题,并对我们的实践探索进行了总结,提出了提高生物化学多媒体辅助教学效果的方法和途径等。     

Resource interdependence,student interactions and performance in cooperative learning

Two studies were carried out during university workshops, and analyzed the effects of resource interdependence on student‐student interactions, and the impact of these interactions on performance. Students worked cooperatively, either on complementary information (positive resource interdependence) or on identical information (resource independence). In Study 1, analysis of videotaped interactions revealed that working on complementary information produced more positive interactions; however this was not sufficient to prevent students who had no direct access to the information from being disadvantaged, because of informational dependence. In Study 2, with simpler texts allowing better information transmission, performance was favored when students worked on complementary information. Moreover, working on identical information not only enhanced confrontations of point of views, it also elicited competence threat. Further analysis revealed that competence threat mediated resource interdependence effect on performance. Discussion provides insights into the conditions in which different cooperative methods can benefit learning.     

The effects on student achievement and attitudes when using integrated learning systems with cooperative pairs

The purpose of this study was to determine whether combining cooperative learning strategies with instruction delivered using an Integrated Learning System (ILS) produced academic and attitudinal gains in students. Sixty-five fifth-grade students were randomly divided into two groups, cooperative and individual. Students in the cooperative group worked on ILS math activities with a partner. Students in the individual group worked on the same activities by themselves. Achievement and attitudinal data were collected for the students prior to the experimental treatment and at the end of the treatment period. Results revealed that students using an ILS for mathematics instruction performed better on standardized tests and were more positive toward math and the computer math activities when they worked in cooperative groups than when they worked on the same activities individually.     

Enhancing student performance through cooperative learning in physical sciences

Students in a physical sciences course were introduced to cooperative learning at the University of Queensland, Gatton Campus. Groups of four to five students worked together in tutorial and practical sessions. Mid-term and practical examinations were abolished and 40% of total marks were allocated to the cooperative learning activities. A peer- and self-assessment system was successfully adapted to account for individual performance in cooperative learning group assignments. The results suggest that cooperative learning was very well received by students, and they expressed willingness to join cooperative learning groups in other courses. In addition, cooperative learning offered many benefits to students in terms of graduate attributes such as teamwork, communication, lifelong learning and problem-solving.     

Control of feedback in computer-assisted instruction

Although considerable research has been conducted on both learner control and feedback, very little research has addressed the effect of giving learners control over the feedback that they receive. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of learner control over feedback in a CAI lesson. Subjects used one of four CAI programs which provided either program control or learner control over verification or elaboration feedback. Results indicated that subjects who received elaboration feedback during instruction performed better than students who received verification feedback. Type of control did not have a significant influence on performance. However, when subjects selected feedback for items answered incorrectly during instruction, subjects under learner control/elaboration performed better on the posttest than subjects under learner control/verification. Implications for the design of CAI are discussed.     

论计算机辅助教学的局限性

计算机辅助教学(CAI)以良好的交互性、丰富而生动的教学媒体,突破了传统教学模式的局限,拓展学生的知识吸蓄空间,极大地提高了教学效率,将传统教学模式中难以表现的教学内容以多媒体形式在课堂内演示,使学生的学习由抽象、被动接受转化为具象、主动接受,尤其是目前学校的教学实习、生产实习、参观等必须与企业紧密联系的教学环节越来越难于实施的时候,多媒体CAI以它独特的优势,弥补了课堂教学环节中的不足而愈显重要.     

Compressing instruction time into fewer years of schooling and the impact on student performance

Is it possible to compress instruction time into fewer school years without lowering education levels? A fundamental reform in Germany reduced the length of academic track schooling by one year, while increasing instruction hours in the remaining school years to provide students with a very similar core curriculum and the same overall instruction time. Using aggregated administrative data on the full population of students, we find that the reform increases grade repetition rates and lowers final grade point averages, without affecting graduation rates. The results suggest adverse reform effects on student performance, but the economic significance of the effects appears moderate.