An analysis of intuitive and model-directed media-selection decisions

Media-selection decisions of 30 instructional development graduate students were studied under intuitive and model-directed decision-making conditions. Students were given three media-selection problems and were directed to select an appropriate medium for each problem and to write a rationale for the medium selected. The students used thier intuitions to select media for the first problem. They used a formal media selection process to select media for the other two problems. Results indicated that the proportion of students who made correct media selections when they used their intuition was not significantly different from the proportion who made correct selections the first time they used the formal selection process. The proportion of students who made correct selections the second time they used the formal process was significantly greater than the proportion who made correct selection decisions when using their intuition and when using the formal selection process the first time. Subsequent analysis, however, indicated that there was no correlation between the correct use of the formal selection process and making correct media-selection decisions. Implications for the design and use of formal media selection processes in instructional development are described. The authors appreciate the assistance provided by Gene Glass regarding the analysis and interpretation of the data reported in this study.