Response Mode in Technical Programs

Review of the Response Mode Issue

“…The studies by Entwisle et al (1968) support a hypothesis that, if students using different response modes are required to spend the same amount of time on the program, no achievement differences are to be expected. Students could probably read a program twice in the amount of time required by CR and feedback.…”

“…It is difficult to interpret the significance of the Entwisle et al (1968) findings. The FORTRAN program was quite brief, and no data regarding students' familiarity with this subject matter are presented, though it may well be high for engineering students.…”

“…Familiarity data for the FORTRAN material is not reported by Entwisle, et al (1968), though the level of prior familiarity, as determined by pretest, was used as a variable in their second study. In this study the interaction between previous familiarity and response mode indicated that constructing responses appeared to be more beneficial to subjects with high pretest scores.…”