A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of in‐depth, conceptually integrated instruction delivered via a videodisc program in eliminating children's alternative frameworks in science. Prior to instruction, pupils in two eighth‐grade science classes, one of higher ability and one of lower ability, were interviewed to document their alternative frameworks (informal knowledge) for explaining two science phenomena. Interviews after instruction showed that students of both ability groups did not retain their alternative frameworks. This contradicts other research findings that children's alternative frameworks are extremely resistant to change and must be directly addressed during instruction for conceptual change to occur. A well‐designed science curriculum that was intelligible, plausible, and fruitful, but did not directly address alternative frameworks during instruction, changed 92% of the alternative frameworks held by students to scientific understandings.

This study compares the effectiveness of a videodisc curriculum that incorporates principles of instructional design (including discrimination practice and cumulative review) with a traditional basal program designed to teach basic fractions skills. Twenty-eight high school students, including 17 mildly handicapped students, qualified for the study by showing (a) mastery of whole number operations and (b) less than 50 percent mastery of the fractions skills to be taught. The students were matched in pairs based on a pretest score and math scores from the California Achievement Test, and then randomly assigned to one of the treatments. During the ten-day intervention, observers collected data on levels of treatment implementation and student on-task behavior. A criterion-referenced posttest and two-week maintenance test were administered. The videodisc curriculum resulted in significantly higher posttest and maintenance test scores. Levels of on-task behavior were significantly higher in the videodisc sessions, although levels in both conditions were above 80 percent. An analysis of student error patterns indicated that differences in instructional design features contributed to the relative effectiveness of the two curricula.

Twenty-five high school learning disabled subjects were randomly assigned to one of two computer-assisted instructional treatments in syllogistic reasoning—one required a deeper level of processing with a diagrammatic response, the other conventional responding. Instructional time was constant across the two groups, yet the subjects who provided diagrammatic responses required fewer trials to reach the mastery criteria. Also, diagramming produced significantly higher posttest and maintenance test scores. Overall, the instruction was effective in (a) producing better-than-chance scores, (b) improving performance on difficult problem types, and (c) teaching learning disabled students to perform complex logical-thinking tasks to a level equivalent to that of high-achieving populations. The deeper level of processing produced differences on more difficult problem types only. Transfer measures showed that students who learned the strategy also creatively modified it to work problems in less formal forms. Variables in the meaningfulness of a strategy to learning disabled students can affect learning.

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