Delivering substance abuse and child welfare content through interactive television

Objective: To evaluate interactive television (ITV) for delivering a gradua te course on substance abuse and child welfare to distant sites. Method: St udents' ratings of instructor-student communication are compared across dis tance and resident sites for the ITV course and with students in the tradit ional course. Similar comparisons are made for students' ratings of the amo unt learned and for instructors' judgments of student performance. Distance and resident students' ratings of the ITV course are also compared to trad itional courses. Results: The mean of the instructor-student communication dimensions was the same for distance and traditional students and was sligh tly more positive for distance students compared to resident students. Stud ent performance and course grades were similar across groups, and the dista nce and resident students in the ITV course rated it as helpful to their le arning as traditional courses. Conclusions: The results suggest that ITV co mpromised neither instructor-student communication nor the amount that stud ents learned.