Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-09, Section: A, page: 4881. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of images induced by pictures on verbal instruction of intellectual skill learning. The research questions in this study were: (a) Does augmenting printed instruction with pictures facilitate retention and transfer of intellectual skills?; (b) Does augmenting instruction (printed or printed-pictures) by requiring responses to imagery facilitate retention and transfer of intellectual skills?; (c) is there an interaction between the variables of mode of presentation and mode of response?; and (d) Are there interactions of any of these variables with students' reading comprehension ability? Ten hypotheses were established from these questions. / The subjects were 200 seventh grade male students in the Attached Middle School at Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea. On the basis of the scores on reading comprehension test, students were assigned to high and low reading comprehension ability groups. The students in each reading ability group were randomly assigned to four instructional groups depending on the mode of presentation and the mode of response. The four instructional groups were verbal-picture/verbal-picture, verbal-picture/verbal, verbal/verbal-picture, and verbal/verbal group. / Each instructional group received one of four versions of the instructional module which dealt with two concepts and five rules of electric circuits. The verbal-picture/verbal-picture group was presented verbal materials with pictures and asked to make verbal and pictorial responses during acquisition. The verbal-picture/verbal group was presented verbal materials with pictures and asked to make verbal responses during acquisition. The verbal/verbal-picture group was presented verbal materials without pictures and asked to make verbal and pictorial responses during acquisition. The verbal/verbal group was presented verbal materials without pictures and asked to make verbal responses during acquisition. The dependent variable were a retention measure and a transfer measure a week following the acquisition. / The results show the following: (1) Augmenting printed instruction with pictures was found to be more effective than printed instruction without pictures in the retention and transfer of intellectual skills; (2) No significant difference between the verbal-picture response group and the verbal response group was found; (3) No interaction between the variables of presentation mode and response mode was found; (4) No interaction between the variables of presentation mode and response mode and the level of reading comprehension on the retention of intellectal skills and no three-way interaction among the independent variables on both retention and transfer of intellectual skills were found, while a significant interaction between the variable of presentation mode and the level of reading comprehension on the transfer of intellectual skills was found. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-02, Section: A, page: 0645. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

A model was developed to determine the full cost of implementing a PLATO-based system of Computer-Assisted Instruction. Costs were classified into four categories: personnel, facilities, equipment, and courseware. A Cost Data Collection Form was developed to identify the elements of each category and to summarize the results. The study concluded that, while PLATO-based CAI was capable of being a cost-effective instructional delivery system under certain circumstances, its most common application--drill and practice--was very expensive when compared with alternative media. / A management model was also developed for the purpose of effectively integrating PLATO-based CAI into the instructional design effort of Florida Community Colleges. Taking into consideration the diversity of institutional sizes and resources, the model incorporates the most desirable aspects of centralized and decentralized administration. Areas of administrative responsibility were classified as follows: technical direction and administration, program analysis and evaluation, courseware development, and programming and equipment operations. While recommending that strictly administrative functions be centralized, the study recommended that all other functions be delegated to the PLATO Project Steering Committee consisting of all professional users of the system. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-07, Section: A, page: 2907. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-10, Section: A, page: 5304. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-10, Section: A, page: 5306. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

This study investigated the nature of the interaction between a particular method of individualized science instruction and the personality characteristic of dependency. Interaction effects were sought in two areas--the interaction of instructional method with changes in dependency over time, and an aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) between dependency, instructional method, and science achievement. / In the area of changes in dependency, it was hypothesized that exposure to a period of individualized instruction based on materials of the Junior Secondary Science Project (JSSP) would be associated with an increase in the independence of students. A small battery of personality tests was used to determine the dependency of 275 eighth-grade students in 12 science classes twice over the six-month treatment period. The tests employed included the Hidden Figures Test, the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank, and an Independence of Mind test and Dependence-Proneness Scale modified by the investigator. / For only one of the facets of dependency measured (field-dependence-independence) was any difference observed between the changes in dependency of students in the individualized classes and those in a control group. Consistent with the experimental assumptions, males and individualized students made greater gains (p < .05) on the Hidden Figures Test than females and students in the control group. However, more detailed analysis of the treatment effect revealed that the effect was largely due to the regression towards dependency of initally independent students in conventional instructional classes (the control group). Within the circumstances of the experiment, this finding could not be satisfactorily explained. / No evidence of an ATI between dependency and instructional method was found when scores on a specially developed science achievement test were used as the criterion. A generalized regression analysis computed on the achievement scores revealed that science ability accounted for nearly half of the achievement test score variance, while ATI effects accounted for just over one percent. Possible explanations were offered in terms of likely test-battery invalidity and insufficient control over the instructional treatments. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 0918. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether guidelines for teachers on how to review and select instructional materials have any effect on their actual selection of materials, their teaching processes, and their students' test performance. Adult basic-education teachers (N = 115) went through a review and selection process of materials for a metrics objective that had been specified in advance. Each of 24 teachers was assigned to one of three groups. Group 1 used decision-making guidelines and a criterion checklist; Group 2 used the same criterion checklist withou decision-making guidance; and Group 3 did not receive any guidelines. A workshop was conducted for the teachers on the use of review/select guidelines (Groups 1 and 2) or on the general review/select process (Group 3). / Of the 115 original workshop participants, 24 were assigned to the three groups and proceeded to teach the lesson. / These teachers provided feedback on the instructional process they used to teach the lesson, and they collected student attitude, pretest, and posttest data. One hundred and sixty one students were included in the analysis. / (chi)('2) analyses were conducted on teacher background, teacher and student attitudes, and instructional-process data to determine whether groups of teachers differed in their background, attitudes, or the instructional processes. No significant differences were found among teacher groups (p < .01). However, significant differences were found among students' attitudes (p < .01); students in Group 3 exhibited more positive attitudes toward the lesson and the materials than students in the other groups. / Student performance on a 10-item test administered following the lesson was analyzed by means of an analysis of covariance in which group assignment of their teachers was the independent variable; pretest scores were the covariate. Scores on a parallel posttest were the depenent variable. Significant differences (p < .01) were found among groups. / A formative product evaluation of the guidelines resulted in no suggestions for substantive content changes, but suggestions were to restructure the guidelines into a training section and into an application section. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4276. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-09, Section: A, page: 4874. / Thesis (Educat.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

The purpose of the study was to develop an instrument comprised of two parts (English and Greek) that would measure the language dominance of Greek bilingual children attending Grades 1-4 in the United States. The instrument is expected to assist school personnel, educators, and researchers to objectively determine children's language dominance for placement and instructional purposes. / An item pool of 80 items for each language part (60 multiple choice and 20 free-response items) was pilot-tested in the Greek bilingual schools of Tarpon Springs, Florida, and field-tested in New York and Chicago. The subjects, over 400 in number, were about equally distributed over the four grades and equally divided by sex. Data analyses included: item analyses, test reliabilities, test-retest reliabilities, reliabilities by school and by sex, and an examination of the instrument's concurrent validity. / The 40 best items (30 multiple choice and 10 free-response items) of the 80-item pool for each language part were selected to comprise the final instrument. Item selection was based primiarily on two criteria: (a) lack of statistically significant differences between the Greek and English counterpart items and (b) a minimun of a .30 point biserial value for each item. / The overall test reliability values obtained for the final 40-item instrument were .92 and .93 for the English and Greek parts, respectively, and .84 for the difference between English and Greek scores. Finally, the instrument was further examined for its concurrent validity, using teacher ratings as a criterion measure. A correlation obtained between teacher ratings and instrument scores of student language dominance showed an overall concurrent validity of .47. / In addition to being useful for both diagnostic and placement purposes of Greek bilingual students in Grades 1-4, the instrument may also be used as a model in development of a similar instrument for bilingual students in higher grades. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-09, Section: A, page: 3862. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects rule selection training would have on performance in tasks requiring the selection of an appropriate rule from a set of related rules. It was anticipated that a treatment program designed to promote rule application skills would be less effective than a program designed to teach both rule application and rule selection skills. / Two experimental tasks were used, each involving a different set of related rules. One task included the rules governing the drawing of diagrams (Experiment I). The other task included the computational procedures used to solve two kinds of probability problems, i.e., addition-rule problems and multiplication-rule problems (Experiment II). Two seventh grade classes served as subjects in each experiment. Pretests were administered prior to the administration of treatment programs. / In both experiments, students were randomly assigned to either a Rule Selection Training group or a No Rule Selection Training group. Students in the Rule Selection Training group were provided multiple opportunities to reach mastery performance levels for both the rule application skills and the rule selection skill. In contrast, those in the No Rule Selection Training group were given multiple mastery opportunities for the rule application skills only. / In Experiments I and II, nearly all students in both groups demonstrated mastery on the rule application skills. Of students in the Rule Selection Training group, 74% in Experiment I and 62% in Experiment II met mastery on activities designed to assess the rule selection skill. / The primary dependent variable for both experiments was a retention test designed to assess the learner's ability to select the appropriate rule. In Experiment I, students in the Rule Selection Training group were more successful on the rule selection retention test. In Experiment II, students in the Rule Selection Training group were more successful on the rule selection-and-application test for addition-rule problems, as measured by the number of problems correctly solved (rule selection-and-application) as well as the number of times the wrong computational procedure was used (rule selection errors). There were no significant differences between the two groups for multiplication-rule problems for either the number of problems solved or the number of rule selection errors. / It was concluded that rule application practice to mastery levels may be neither an efficient approach nor a sufficient condition for teaching sets of related rules. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-09, Section: A, page: 3867. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.