Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Education, 1979. / This study investigated the effectiveness of televised lectures in
teaching an introductory statistics course to first year commerce undergraduates,
Certain constraints imposed themselves on this introductory
course which dictated many of the teaching conditions. Some of
these conditions were that the lecture situation formed the major
teaching component in the course and that these lectures were administered
to large numbers of students (groups of between 70 and 120).
The primary aim of the investigation was to determine whether or
not the effectiveness of these lectures (when televised) could be
assessed. A secondary aim was to determine whether or not (once the
effectiveness of the lectures had been assessed) the areas in the lectures
which had been identified as ineffective, could be analysed and
changed, so as to become effective.
In order to conduct this investigation the method employed demanded
that three preliminary areas be fully expounded. The first was that
the meaning of 'instructional effectiveness' be fully defined in terms
of the previling conditions. In order to achieve this a criterion
referenced approach to instruction was adapted to the television lectures.
Secondly, the 'type' of television lecture had to be disclosed.
The televised lectures were traditional in that they were similar to
die 'live' lectures except for a few novel innovations. The study did
not however set out to compare the effectiveness of the 'live and
'T.V,1 instruction - a point which is fully discussed in the second and
sixth chapters, The third preliminary area was the means employed to
collect the data which was needed for the evaluation of the lectures.
A recently devoWpcd educational computer system was used for this
purpose and a full description of this novel system is given in this
study.
The experimentation was based on two important premises. First,
the evaluative means which were used to assess the lectures had to be
valid. In other words they had to measure what they were supposed to
iii.
measure. The validation procedure, adopted is therefore fully discussed.
Secondly the variables had to be Identified and controlled
when improvements were attempted so as to ensure that the only variable
which was allowed to change was the instruction. This procedure
is always a difficult one and is fully discussed in chapter six and
chapter eight.
The results of this investigation indicated that it was both
possible to assess and improve the effectiveness of a televised lecture
within the prevailing conditions. However this investigation is
seen only as a preliminary study into an area which requires scientifically
based analyses and conclusions in order to achieve both effective
and efficient instruction in this teaching area. Therefore there
is much which this study did not do and several criticisms are made in
the final chapter.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/15023 |
| Date | 25 July 2014 |
| Creators | Young, Derrick Aubrey |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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