A computer instructional support environment for information literacy: An experimental analysis.

Abstract

A pretest-treatment-posttest experimental comparison of three individual study support environments for an introductory Management Information Systems course indicated a positive trend in student achievement on structured examinations. The three environments studied include a textbook and class notes presentation method, and two Computer Instructional Support Environments (CISE), drill and practice, and tutorial. Of these, the drill and practice individual study support method displayed a consistently positive effect on examination achievement within each of seven MIS topics. Each topic examined could be classified on the basis of the level of learning objective, and further statistical analysis results indicate a strong correlation between the CISE drill and practice method and attaining a learning objective level of knowledge. Previous research in CISE implementation has been limited by the assumptions of single learning objective levels and single presentation methods, when in fact, the environment is highly complex. A series of experimental observations for introductory MIS topics, in which the learning objective level for each is identified, compares three support environments for individual study. Separate statistical analyses, performed on individual topics, indicate a higher level of achievement by student participants in the CISE Drill and Practice environment for score improvement and improvement in the time required to complete the posttest activity. Two ANOVA models examined the relationships between individual study support methods and topics within two classifications of learning objectives. These results indicate a strong relationship between study support method and learning objective level for text score improvement. The pretest-treatment-posttest experimental design used in this analysis may be replicated across additional topics within the Introductory MIS course to increase the number of topic observations in each learning objective classification. In addition, the experiment can be performed using the same topics to increase the sample size and further clarify the statistical results.