A TEST OF SOME ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION*
Paul I. Jacobs, Sharadchandra Kulkarni · ETS Research Bulletin Series · 1963
ABSTRACT Programers try to construct programs which are carefully sequenced and provide the learner with immediate knowledge of results. The present research has implications for these program construction practices and their underlying rationale. Ss were randomly assigned to Group R, the regular version of the program, Group O, the program with knowledge of results omitted, and Group I, the program with the order of some frames inverted. Chemistry and mathematics programs were used with a total of 223 students in three schools. In no school did the groups differ in time taken to learn. In one school Group O made significantly more errors in going through the program than did Groups R and I, but in the other two schools there were no group differences in errors. In two of the schools Groups O and I did significantly better on the posttest than did Group R, but in the third school there were no group differences on the posttest. In one school Groups O and I had significantly more favorable attitudes toward programed instruction than did Group R, but this was not true in the other two schools. Our general conclusions are: A mismatch between program and students may occur when a program is too redundant for students of a particular ability level to provide sufficient challenge to them. Such mismatches may be revealed by a comparison of R, O, and I conditions with regard to posttest achievement and attitude toward programed instruction. Ability and motivational characteristics of the students, administrative variables, and subject matter variables may be at least as important as the programing variables (sequencing and knowledge of results) that we manipulated. A program is a set of carefully sequenced materials which build upon each other to effectively guide the student toward achieving well‐defined objectives (see Holland, 1960a; Glaser, 1960; Skinner, 1960; Stolurow, 1961). A program consists of a series of frames, each of which requires the student to answer a question and tells him what the correct answer is (provides knowledge of results). This research attempts to see how (a) carefully sequencing the frames of a program and (b) providing knowledge of results with each frame contribute to the program's effectiveness. The basic experimental design involved giving comparable groups of students one of three versions of a program: This design was used with auto‐instructional programs in two different areas, mathematics and chemistry.