Effectiveness of learning from a programmed text compared with a conventional text covering the same material.

Abstract

Studying a programmed textbook was compared with studying a conventional textbook to determine which method leads to better performance on a content examination. Both texts covered similar material on operant psychology. In a setting where 12 teaching assistants each taught 2 discussion sections with enrollments of about 22 students, 1 section studied the programmed text, and the other studied the conventional text. At the end of the semester, all students took an examination which contained several types of items. The results of the experiment favored the programmed text in that, for all 6 objective types of items and for 5 out of 8 essay items, the level of performance of the programmed text group was higher than the conventional text group (p < .05 or better from the analysis of variance).

Review of the Response Mode Issue

“…These findings suggested that as students could bring their prior learning to bear on the task, i.e., when the task relied more on previously learned material, there were no differences between different response modes. Daniel and Murdoch's (1968) study also supports a familiarity interpretation. These investigators found that a group studying Holland and Skinner's (1961) program on operant psychology achieved more than a group studying the same subject matter using Skinner's non-programmed writings.…”

“…Specifically, Karis et al (1968) found that the superiority of CR disappears when synonyms and paraphrasing of technical medical terminology are scored as acceptable on the posttest. Similarly, Daniel and Murdoch (1968) demonstrated that the superiority of CR hinged upon a test requiring students to respond with technical, presumably novel, terms. The fact that the advantage of CR disappeared in these studies when technical and presumably unfamiliar responses were removed as a variable strongly supports a familiarity interpretation and can not directly be accounted for by an explanation dealing with the blackout ratio.…”

Interaction among anxiety, stress, response mode, and familiarity of subject matter on achievement from programmed instruction.

“…This familiarity interpretation is in accord with the results of Daniel and Murdoch (1968) who found overall achievement differences favoring a group studying operant psychology with a constructed response program (Holland & Skinner, 1961) compared to subjects studying the same subject with nonprogrammed writings. When differences between the groups on the most technical, and presumably least familiar, subtest were eliminated from the dependent measures by covariance adjustment the other group differences were no longer significant.…”

Feedback Types in Programmed Instruction: A Systematic Review

“…much research has suggested that programmed instruction is superior to conventional teaching practices in promoting learning (Chatterjee & Basu, 1987;daniel & murdoch, 1968;Fernald & Jordan, 1991;Kulik, Cohen, & Ebeling, 1980). Conversely, other studies have indicated that it produces similar (Kulik, schwalb, & Kulik, 1982) or inferior (Bhushan & sharma, 1975) learning when compared to traditional approaches.…”