THE EFFECT OF PRESCRIBED VERSUS STUDENT-CONTROLLED INSTRUCTIONAL SEQUENCES ON KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION USING CAI AND PIAGETIAN DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY
Dissertation Summary
This study was designed to investigate the achievement of concrete and formal operational students when the Piagetian cognitive level of the educational material was varied in computer assisted instruction (CAI).
This study examined:
1) the students' preferences of instructional modes in CAI with concrete or formal operational levels.
2) the effectiveness of three different instructional procedures in CAI with concrete and formal operational students: (a) prescribed concrete operational level instruction, (b) prescribed formal operational level instruction, and (c) student-controlled optional instruction.
3) the relationships of students' cognitive developmental levels and their performance test scores in three instructional procedures.
To assess students' cognitive developmental levels, Lawson's short version of Longeot test was administered to 102 high school students with mean age of 14.9 years. The students were ranomly assigned with matching technique using the Longeot test scores to one of three treatment groups and received computer instructions. In order to examine whether the group which alternated formal and concrete level instructions would have any difference in performance from those who received consistently concrete or formal level instruction, those students who selected consistently only concrete or formal level instruction in the student-controlled optional instruction group were assigned to the concrete level instruction group or the formal level instruction group respectively.
Major findings from this study are:
1) In the student-controlled optional instruction group, there was a nonsignificant difference in the selection of formal level of instructions between concrete and formal students. There was also no significant correlation between the number of formal level instructions selected and the Longeot test score.
2) Based on one-way ANOVA, for the concrete level questions, achievement by the formal level instruction group was significantly higher than in the optional instruction group (p< 0.05). In the reorganized treatment groups, for the complete test and the formal level questions, concrete level students in the concrete level instruction group scored significantly higher than concrete level students in the optional instruction group (p < 0.05).
3) There was no interaction effect between treatment and student cognitive developmental level.
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By Young-Soo Kim
Dissertation Committee:
Professor O. Roger Anderson, Sponsor
Professor Willard J. Jacobson
Professor Warren E. Yasso
Degree of Doctor of Education
in Teachers College, Columbia University, 1986