Motivation, Step Size and Selected Learner Variables in Relation to Performance With Programmed Instruction

Abstract

252 fifth-grade students, categorised into anxiety-ability levels, were exposed to one of three forms of pre-program experience in an attempt to manipulate achievement motivation: (a) a pre-test followed by a satisfactory report, (b) a pre-test followed by no report, and (c) a pre-test on material other than that covered by the program. After the pre-program experience students completed either a large or small step (SS) version of an English money program. Using four criteria (immediate post-test, delayed post-test, time, and program errors) ability was significant for all but time (p<0·01), anxiety was significant only for errors and only on the SS program (p<005), and the Treatment X Anxiety interaction was significant for the delayed post-test on the SS program (p<0·01). This interaction was such that high-anxious students performed better, without a pre-test while low-anxious students did better with a pre-test. Discussion centred on the explanation of this interaction and why the SS program produced more differentiation than the large step.

Conditions of Learning and Response Mode: an Experiment Using Programmed Learning Materials in an African Secondary School

“…Statistical analysis of the results was carried out using the technique of multiple linear regression, Battenberg and Ward (1963), which allows analysis of variance and covariance to be carried out by comparing the squared multiple correlation coefficient (R 2 ) for the " full " model, containing all the variables, with that for a " restricted " model from which the variable under analysis has been withdrawn, Blank and Pysh (1970), Morris, Blank, McKie and Rankine (1970). In general terms the amount learned from the programs was somewhat disappointing (c/.…”