Graduation Year

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Granting Department

Applied Behavior Analysis

Major Professor

Darrel E. Bostow, Ph.D

Committee Member

Kevin Murdock, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Ken Richter, Ph.D.

Keywords

Programmed instruction, education, computer-assisted learning, web-based instruction, experimental analysis of teaching methods

Abstract

Posttest performances after two forms of Web-based tutorial instruction were compared. Both forms were designed to teach students to identify musical compositions that typify Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th Century music. The first treatment condition was a series of Web pages with text and accompanying hyperlinks to musical selections matched to the text. In this condition, students read and listened at their own discretion -- without Web software program restrictions. The second treatment contained exactly the same text and musical selections, but students in this condition read the text in small portions while being required to fill in missing words in the text presented. No time constraints were placed on participants. The essential difference between the conditions was 1) movement with the instruction content without restriction, and 2) advancement through the program being dependent upon correct responses to the text material (which included discriminative responding to accompanying musical examples). A statistically significant difference between pretest and posttest was found in both experimental conditions, but a difference in posttest scores between the two conditions was not found. Implications of the study and suggestions for future research were discussed.

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