INTEGRATIVE EVALUATION - AN EMERGING ROLE FOR CLASSROOM STUDIES OF CAL

This paper reviews the work of a team over two and a half years whose remit has been to ''evaluate'' a diverse range of CAL-computer assiste d learning-in use in a university setting. It gives an overview of the team's current method, including some of the instruments most often u sed, and describes some of the painful lessons from early attempts. It then offers a critical discussion of what the essential features of t he method are, and of what such studies are and are not good for. One of the main conclusions, with hindsight, is that its main benefit is a s integrative evaluation: to help teachers make better use of the CAL by adjusting how it is used, rather than by changing the software or i nforming purchasing decisions. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd