A controlled experiment studying effects of adding voice-over sound to a silent electronic text service tested program acceptability and memory retention. Results indicate no significant differences in ratings for acceptability although the test for memory retention resulted in significantly higher scores for the sound group on recall and…

This study examined whether the sources of information children use to substantiate story-based inferences are influenced by the medium of delivery. The 48 third grade students who acted as subjects were stratified by sex and randomly assigned to one of two media conditions; i.e., each child was presented an African folktale either (1) as a…

A review of computer assisted instruction research and recent meta-analytical reports suggests that all research on the learning benefits of the instructional uses of computers should be halted until there is a plausible reason to expect that computers are instrumental in learning, since all existing evidence indicates that computers do not yield…

Describes a study which compared film and written material with regard to effects produced by order in which conflicting information is presented. Results indicate film is more influential and better recalled than conflicting written information: conflicting paragraphs produce a primacy effect, whereas analogous film segments produce no order…

This paper questions both what was being tested in prior instructional media research on the educational value of film and television and the value of some of those findings. An alternative way of conceptualizing the communication process that occurs when students view an instructional film or television program is proposed, which places viewers…

In a study that was conducted to measure performance as a function of multimedia instructions, 360 college students in a University of Colorado introductory psychology course were taught to build a model helicopter from an assembly kit. Their instructions consisted of either viewing a narrated film (one or two viewings), or hands-on practice using…

Current issues in educational communications and technology are addressed in this collection of 48 papers, in which research reports predominate. Topics discussed include factors related to the learner, e.g., field dependence/independence, learning strategies, information processing, spatial ability, cognitive style, and cognitive strategies.…

This study investigated the effectiveness of videotape as a medium for communicating skills in audiovisual instruction to education students at a university. Results indicate videotape mediated instruction can be better for developing skills in some practical aspects of audiovisual instruction than the lecture method. (MBR)

This study examined the relative effectiveness of different media in presenting modeling stimuli to adult trainees in a supervisory skills training program and assessed their satisfaction with the training and their performance. Eighty undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions--audio only, text only, audio plus text,…

Addresses the implicit assumption that instructional media represent meaningful experimental variables independent of instructional content or strategy. Results of computer-based instruction (CBI) studies (both well-designed and flawed) and meta-analyses are reviewed to support the authors' position that this assumption is invalid, and new…

The use of media in persuasive messages was investigated in five studies addressing: (1) the effectiveness of realistic media in such messages; (2) interaction of field dependence/independence or hemisphericity with media type in persuasive message delivery; and (3) whether mediated messages should be designed differently for learners with…

The "symbol systems approach" to the study of computers in education that is outlined avoids the pitfalls of past media research--particularly research on the effects of television on children's learning and knowledge--and asserts that media can be usefully distinguished in terms of the symbol systems they present and the kinds of…

This field experiment begins to build a theoretical framework for exploring the effects of media characteristics on subjects' understanding and integration of information. Students in two eighth-grade science classes wrote term papers with one class using a print encyclopedia and the other an electronic encyclopedia to conduct their research. A…

This in-depth review of the literature synthesizes articles and abstracts identified as education-oriented microcomputer research studies published since 1979. A brief, historic overview of educational computing is followed by a review of the Becker (1983) survey, which concerned the distribution of microcomputers in education in the United…

The relative effectiveness of verbal and visual augmentation of rate-modified speech in the presentation of technical material was investigated. Subjects were 40 graduate students who used instructional materials consisting of normal and compressed audiotape versions of the Dwyer heart script, printed copies of the script, and black and white…