GENERATIVE ASPECTS OF THE COMPUTER-BASED EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE SYSTEM (CBESS)

A system of computer-based instruction (CBI) authoring and delivery to ols was developed in which generative CBI techniques were used to dyna mically create instructional presentations from content databases duri ng program execution. Three applications using these techniques are ex amined with regard to trade-offs between ease of development and limit ations imposed by program specificity: 1) A semantic network was used to represent large bodies of terse facts to be memorized. The need for authors to create large numbers of question screens was avoided by a feature enabling questions and foils to be generated on-the-fly from d atabase assertions as the student programs ran. 2) Technical vocabular y training was accomplished with a generative approach in which an arr ay of student learning activities were automatically generated from a database minimally consisting of technical terms and their definitions . 3) A more difficult program allowed greater interface and lesson con trol flexibility for creating more sophisticated practice lessons in w hich new instances were dynamically inserted into templates for questi ons, anticipated answers and feedback. A common application theme emer ging from field-testing the programs was their use in learning resourc e centers to address specific learning objectives from larger courses.