LEARNING EFFECTS OF CAI ON COLLEGE-STUDENTS

The purpose of this study was to determine if college students learn b etter when using lecture/CAI than by using the conventional lecture me thod, when the material presented is very visually oriented. The subje cts consisted of 28 students enrolled in a freshman level computer sci ence course that is required for their major. Students were randomly a ssigned to one of two groups. Both groups received the same lecture. T he control group was presented examples in class by the professor aide d by transparencies. The treatment group was presented the same exampl es using a computer tutorial, without teacher intervention. As was ind icated on the pre-test, the two groups demonstrated remarkably similar results in the amount of prior knowledge of the subject area. There w as no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of l earning that took place, as shown by the results of the post-test. The re was, however, a considerable difference in time spent on the task. The examples took much longer for the professor to present to the cont rol group than it took the treatment group to absorb the interactive e xamples on individual computers. The majority of the students who were in the treatment group (lecture and computer examples) indicated that they preferred the computer tutorial to having examples presented by the instructor.