Developing Critical Thinking in the Current Events Class

Abstract

The investigation tested the effectiveness of machine instruction in the teaching of spelling to a sample of fifty-four second- and third-grade students. All subjects were located in the same school, and groups were formed on the basis of spelling achievement matching. The analysis of variance statistical technique was employed in the treatment of the data. Although no differences were found in main effects (i.e., machine versus teacher), a differential (Interaction) effect was found at the .002 level of confidence. Further analysis revealed that: (1) on the third-grade level, the machine had proved more effective (.01 level of confidence) than the traditional method, and (2) on the second-grade level the traditional method had produced significantly more achievement (above the .01 level) than the machine method. The strength of the reversal is strongly suggestive of an age level below which this type of machine instruction loses its effectiveness.