This research presents results from two studies designed to test a reformulated model of media richness. A theoretical model of media and information richness perceptions describing the effect of four experiential variables is presented. Through this model, communication participants are seen to overcome the limiting effects of the experiential variables, enabling them to encode messages which are more meaningful to experienced co-participants, thereby expanding the effective bandwidth of the channel-in-use. It is argued that this expansion, termed "channel expansion," can account for inconsistencies in current media richness research by accounting for the dynamic nature of richness perceptions. / The four experiential variables identified are: experience with the channel (EMEXP), experience with the co-participant (CPEXP), experience with the messaging topic (MTEXP), and experience communicating with in the organizational context (ORGEXP). Scales were developed to measure each of these, as well as social influence (SI) and perceived richness of electronic mail (PRICH). Instrument validation is carried out and suggests a high degree of confidence in the scales. / Results from Study 1, a cross-sectional survey, provide strong support for positive relationships between the independent variables of EMEXP, CPEXP, and ORGEXP, and the dependent variable of PRICH. In addition, moderate support is found for positive relationships between the independent variables of MTEXP and SI, and the dependent variable of PRICH. Finally, the shape of the channel expansion curve is investigated. / Results from Study 2, a longitudinal quasi-experiment, also provide strong support for the EMEXP to PRICH, CPEXP to PRICH, and SI to PRICH relationships. MTEXP is not supported as a predictor of PRICH in this study. Finally, the dynamic nature of each of the variables is discussed. / Overall, these results support the interpretation that richness perceptions are dynamic and based largely on a set of experiential predictors. Implications are discussed and future research considered. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1428. / Major Professor: Robert W. Zmud. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The recent additions of communication technologies to the classroom has added a new dimension of concern to the administrator's duties. Unfortunately, this new technology presents a new area of educational study usually not included in the formal education of the administrator. / The purpose of this study is to determine when the public school districts in the United States are expected to establish concrete plans to make the transition from a total teacher controlled classroom environment to a learning situation enhanced by communication technologies. Four components of communication technologies were presented in this study: (1) Curriculum; (2) Information access; (3) Future employment; and, (4) Technological materials. / The task was to engage a panel of educational experts (often geographically scattered) in the process of forecasting, sharing their reactions to each other's forecasts, and moving those forecasts to a general consensus. Then such a consensus could provide a blueprint for others in the administration of public school districts. / Since the Delphi technique eliminates random sampling, panelists (experts) were selected from a solicited list of successful educational specialists throughout the United States. The cross-impact technique was used following the second round and the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test compared the values from the first two rounds using the raw data as supplied by the panelists. / A systems analysis of the results indicated that all of the components, their relationship to each other, and their functions in the process of impacting on the public schools are interrelated. Therefore, none of the components stands alone but is related to and interacts with the others. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: A, page: 1059. / Major Professor: Frank W. Banghart. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

This "action research" examined a select portion of the "chain of results." Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to explore the possible relationships between organizational culture, training and job performance. The findings are: (1) When training is designed and does not purposefully incorporate the values, beliefs and norms of the organization, then the values, beliefs, and norms of an employee do not seem to be influenced. (2) There is not a significant relationship between all organizational culture factors and job performance; however, when "quality and teamwork" are important to an employee, then there is a significant relationship to job performance. (3) When an employee requires database management for the job and has no other mechanism for learning a database management program, training which has been designed using a modified "systems approach model" results in classroom performance which is better than someone who has not taken any training. The achievement scores are not considered mastery; consequently, suggestions are made for future course design and current course offerings. (4) With exception to "integrity" and "organization serving as a good neighbor" the values, and beliefs stated by the employee are espoused by the director of the organization. Recommendations are made to address the methodological and statistical issues of this study. Suggestions for how the results of this study can be applied to the organization are made. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 3995. / Major Professor: Roger Kaufman. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

The problem addressed in this study is whether children from lower SES homes would benefit in their reading and verbal skills through interaction with computer software that reads to them. If the verbal abilities and reading skills of a child increase as a result of an adult reading to him or her, would interactive storybook software provide similar results? / The rationale is twofold: (1) It has been demonstrated that one-to-one storybook read-aloud increases the literary skills of the child, but the teacher:student ratio in the kindergarten classroom and the time allotted weekly to the teacher to reach individual students limits this interaction; (2) Computer technology and highly interactive storybook software that reads to children are being introduced into the classrooms that allow children to actively participate in the reading process. / The major hypotheses are: (1) Interactive storybook software will facilitate the emergent storybook reading behaviors of kindergarten children from lower SES homes; (2) Interactive storybook software will increase the verbal abilities of these same children. / Subjects were randomly selected after a determination of SES was made. The design was a pretest-posttest control group design, using pretest scores from the Verbal Scale of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (1972) and Sulzby's Observation of Emergent Storybook Reading (1985) as covariates with posttest scores from the same instruments. The treatment took place in public school kindergarten classrooms equipped with CD ROM and MS-DOS hardware. The schools are located in a district in northern Florida. Each subject in the treatment group worked with the software three times a week for seven weeks. Storybook software was provided by Discis Knowledge Research, Inc. / The results of the study indicate that the software is significant in increasing the verbal abilities of children when they use it for 42 minutes a week for at least seven weeks. There were no significant results for emergent reading behaviors. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4270. / Major Professor: Charles Hall Wolfgang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The advent of television has greatly expanded the range of role models available to children and adults alike. Children and their families can learn about occupations, occupational roles, and character behaviors within the comfort of their own homes through the symbolic modeling provided by the media. / This study used content analysis to determine how occupations were portrayed in programs broadcast on commercial network television and public television. This study builds on the research of Melvin DeFleur (1964) and the social learning theory of Albert Bandura (1977). / The sample consisted of 90 children and family programs randomly selected from PBS daytime programs, commercial network prime-time programs, and commercial network Saturday morning programs. All children and family programs were recorded during a three-week period during the 1989-1990 season. / Two coders observed and coded each primary and secondary character for the role model's sex, age, occupational classification, explicitness of occupational portrayal, and reinforcement of role model's work-related performance. A total of 970 primary and secondary role models were observed and coded. / Based on the analysis of results, it was concluded that children watching television will observe more characters in white collar occupations than any other occupation. Out of 970 primary and secondary characters coded only 355 characters were portrayed in service worker, farm worker, blue collar worker or white collar occupations. / Prime-time family programming and daytime children's programming portrayed more characters in occupations working while Saturday morning children's programming portrayed very few characters working. On daytime children's and prime-time family programming males outnumbered females by 2 to 1 while on Saturday morning children's programming males outnumbered females by 3 to 1. Daytime children's and Saturday morning children's programming portrayed younger characters while prime-time family programming portrayed a more representative cross section of ages. Most characters in children and family programs are portrayed as being unrewarded for work-related performances. / It was concluded that children and family programs do not accurately represent the real world of work in their portrayal of occupations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2339. / Major Professor: Robert G. Stakenas. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The rules for order of operations are important to students in numerical computation, simplifying algebraic expressions, evaluating formulas, writing proofs, solving equations, and success on standardized tests. Errors in evaluating expressions that require knowledge of this topic are often found at middle and high school. Moreover, pilot testing revealed that college students also committed such errors. Some students made errors that were consistent with an incorrect interpretation of the My Dear Aunt Sally mnemonic. / A few scholars have given careful thought to order of operations. However, many students, teachers and texts have given little attention to this topic. Microcomputers can give students appreciation and motivation for studying conventions. The fact that some of these rules are built into microcomputers allows students to investigate them with rich and varied activities enhanced by immediate feedback. / This study has shown that the time ordinarily used in teaching these conventions may not be adequate. A questionnaire revealed that most students had only one class period studying the topic. / Since students had exhibited definite weaknesses on grouping conventions and since the use of computers employ such conventions, a study was done to determine the effectiveness of using microcomputers in teaching this topic. The study involved 132 students at three high schools in Florida. The experimental group was taught the conventions with the aid of microcomputers. The control group was taught the conventions through traditional teaching methods without the use of microcomputers. / The results of the experiment showed that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group. The experimental group scored significantly higher (.05) than the control group on achievement, retention, and transfer. / During the pilot study a new difficulty related to conventions was noticed. Expressions that involved numerals repeated in certain ways, "special numerals," were missed with high frequency. The study showed that the whole group of subjects (experimental and control) performed significantly worse at evaluating these special numeral expressions as opposed to the regular expressions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-02, Section: A, page: 0290. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of an instructional treatment that presented adaptive feedback based on students' self-perceptions about their answer correctness (response certitude) with a non-adaptive treatment, upon student performance, feedback study time, and lesson efficiency. The treatments were designed to teach verbal information and defined concept tasks using a computer-based delivery system. Undergraduates enrolled in two classes of introductory educational psychology were randomly assigned to one of two treatments--one in which the amount of feedback information varied according to a combined assessment of response correctness and the student's response certitude, and another in which the feedback information did not vary. Results indicate that effects of adaptive feedback were not significantly different from the effects of non-adaptive feedback on either verbal information or concept portions of an immediate posttest. In the adaptive group, low certitude responses received significantly more feedback study time than high certitude/wrong responses, and high certitude/corrects received significantly less feedback study time than either low certitude responses or high certitude/errors. In terms of feedback efficiency alone, adaptive feedback was significantly more efficient than non-adaptive feedback, but for overall lesson efficiency, non-adaptive feedback was significantly more efficient. A significantly greater number of high certitude errors occurred than low certitude errors, but high certitude/fine discriminations errors occurred significantly more often than high certitude/gross discrimination errors. There were no significant differences between the adaptive and non-adaptive treatments for the conditional probability of a posttest correct given an error in the practice. Confirmatory patterns of feedback were observed / in a majority of cases. New errors tended to occur about twice as often as would be expected from former studies. Results are discussed in light of past research, and implications for future studies are presented. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-05, Section: A, page: 1720. / Major Professor: Walter W. Wager. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study examined the effect of input device control and gender pairing on learner achievement and satisfaction when learners work in pairs utilizing level 3 interactive video to learn Spanish. Twenty subjects were randomly selected from 8th, 9th and 10th grade Spanish classes, and randomized into same and opposite sex pairs. Each group was asked to complete a series of 4 interactive video Spanish lessons during which 4 separate treatments were applied. These treatments varied the amount of control an individual learner had over the input devices during the lessons. These treatments included full control, no control, and unspecified control. All lessons were videotaped and a portion of these videotapes was used as part of the final analysis. / Five individual hypotheses were tested. Two hypotheses predicted same sex pairing would lead to higher satisfaction with a partner, satisfaction with a lesson, and lesson scores. Three hypotheses predicted that varying the amount of control an individual has during an interactive lesson would affect their satisfaction and lesson scores. / Prior to the beginning of the first lesson, a small survey was administered to measure an individual's experience and comfort level with the interactive computer environments. Survey results revealed male and female subjects were largely homogeneous with regard to experience and comfort with computers. / Of the five hypotheses tested, one was clearly supported by both quantitative and qualitative analysis. This hypothesis predicted same sex pairing would lead to greater lesson satisfaction and greater satisfaction with the partner than opposite sex pairing. The remaining four hypotheses were not supported by the analysis. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-05, Section: A, page: 1569. / Major Professor: C. Edward Wotring. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify the strategies used by learners seeking information in an open-ended hypermedia information system. Four participants were drawn from an introductory technology course incorporating a unit on telecommunications. Participants completed a survey measuring reported knowledge in three areas: metacognitive, system, and subject; as well as the self-efficacy toward technology. Participants searched for information using $Netscape\sp\circler$, thinking aloud as they searched. After finishing the search, the participants completed a questionnaire. / Data were collected in a variety of formats; data analysis took place in several phases. These phases included: scripting the search, reading through the data, segmenting according to research question, and encoding. Participant interviews followed initial analysis of the data. / Three major findings resulted from this study: a variety of strategies are used by learners as they search for information in a hypermedia information system; reported knowledge does have an affect on the strategies used in a hypermedia information system; and perceptions of disorientation and level of perceived self-efficacy have an affect on the strategies used in a hypermedia information system. As a result of the findings, a conceptual framework for understanding in open-ended learning environments was developed, as well as a strategies-in-action model to assist in illustrating the process. Broad implications related to emerging information technologies, open-ended learning environments, and the ways learners think are considered. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-07, Section: A, page: 2648. / Major Professor: Michael J. Hannafin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This study was designed to examine a computerized voice recognition system and its effects on writing skills for community college students with learning disabilities. A repeated measures single case design across subjects was employed. Four community college students, previously identified as having learning disabilities, served as subjects. Three of the four students completed intervention. Students trained in computerized voice recognition system use and produced subsequent expository writings using the system. Two rating techniques, a global holistic rating and an analysis of text features were employed to assess changes in written language skill. Holistic rating employed a 6-point grading scale originally designed for use in grading General Education Development (GED) exams nationwide. The objective analysis of text features involved four indices, frequency, diversity of vocabulary, syntactic complexity, and spelling accuracy, used by researchers to evaluate written expression. Results indicate that dictation using computerized voice recognition for two of the three students produced written essays of better quality than essays written with a word processor when rated holistically by two independent raters. Essays rated greater holistically indicated positive change on one of the four text feature indices, spelling accuracy. These findings imply that computerized voice recognition can assist some students with learning disabilities to improve generally in written communication. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 3077. / Major Professor: Mark A. Koorland. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.