THE EFFECT OF BRANCHING AND PRIOR FAMILIARITY ON ACHIEVEMENT, COMPLETION TIME, AND LEARNER ATTITUDE.
Item
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Title
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THE EFFECT OF BRANCHING AND PRIOR FAMILIARITY ON ACHIEVEMENT, COMPLETION TIME, AND LEARNER ATTITUDE.
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Identifier
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AAI8103924
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identifier
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8103924
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Creator
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DYER, CHARLES AUSTEN.
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Contributor
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Sigmund Tobias
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Date
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1980
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Education, Curriculum and Instruction
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Abstract
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This study compared branching (forward skipping) and non-branching (linear) instructional treatments using a design which allowed for possible aptitude-treatment interactions (ATIs) between students' prior familiarity and the type of treatment. Level of prior familiarity was hypothesized to interact with treatment so that students who were prefamiliarized would take less time for the branching treatment than for the linear treatment, while students who were not prefamiliarized would take the same time for linear and branching treatments. For prefamiliarized students, achievement from the linear treatment would be lower than from the branching treatment, while students who were not prefamiliarized were expected to achieve about the same whether they were given the linear or the branching treatment. Prefamiliarized students were expected to make fewer errors on the instructional program than those who were not prefamiliarized. For the linear treatment, those who were prefamiliarized were expected to have less positive attitudes toward the instruction than those who were not prefamiliarized.;Three versions of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program were given to 120 subjects (36 males and 84 females) who were randomly divided into three equal groups. One half of each group was prefamiliarized with the content of the lessons, while the other half was not prefamiliarized. One group used a linear (no skipping) version of the program; the second group used a version of the program which employed forward skipping; and the third group was a yoked control for the second group. A posttest and an attitude measure were administered when the instructional program was completed.;Posttest scores and the data gathered by the program were analyzed using a 2 x 3 ANOVA. Although prefamiliarization resulted in significant branching, the hypothesized interactions were not found. The prefamiliarized groups achieved consistently better, and the branching groups took less time for the instruction. In addition, the yoked unfamiliarized group did consistently better than expected. The absence of the expected interactions appeared to be due to a combination of subjects' comparatively poor retention of the lesson material, a low level of instructional support for the unfamiliarized groups, and feedback provided by the posttest. The instructional support provided by the forward skipping strategy furthermore tended to provide more differentiation at the top of the achievement scale and less at the bottom, which hindered the detection of interactions.;Further investigation seems warranted using both a more complex forward skipping strategy (so as to permit better differentiation between unfamiliarized groups) and with posttest feedback eliminated. Further investigation of the performance of the yoked unfamiliarized group also seems warranted.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Education
