This paper describes the production of a software program for Master of Education students studying the "Introduction to Research Methods" course at a tertiary institution in Hong Kong. The course was originally delivered in a lecture mode, which proved unsatisfactory in providing sufficient learning support for the students. The paper…

Identifies stages in the process of educational software development: pre-specification stage in which educators identify the software's educational considerations; specification stage in which educators and programers work together to develop the program; documentation stage; field testing stage; and support stage. (MBR)

Discusses results of a survey of 15 educational software developers, which indicate that none of the companies perform any empirical evaluation of their products as part of the development process. Importance and advantages of validation of the effectiveness of a program are considered, and suggestions for encouraging such validation are offered.…

Discusses usability engineering for multimedia learning environments and considers how it can benefit the design and development of educational software. Describes the design and development of interactive multimedia software for second-language learning that included input from users and field testing for usability. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the portability of a Canadian-made educational simulation software package, "The Electronics Workbench," to China that was part of a larger study conducted at the University of Twente (The Netherlands). Evaluation results of the software use in China are presented, including functionality for electronics education, ease of use,…

Discussion of how to teach novice teachers about practical theories and the reflective process of teaching focuses on a hypermedia software system called Chronicles of Teaching. The software features prespecified cases for analysis as well as the ability to enter and link new cases from teachers' classroom observations. (LRW)

Describes study that compared teacher panel reviews of educational software to field test reports to determine the levels of agreement between the two evaluation types. Methods of evaluation are discussed, the York Educational Software Evaluation Scales (YESES) are explained, and the results of the study of 36 software packages are presented.…

Describes a study conducted to determine prevalence of educational software field testing by producers, number of teachers and students participating, evaluation criteria used, whether documentation includes field test results, field test value, and other evaluation methods utilized during product development. Textbook versus software evaluation,…

This article uses the example of a single training course to show how to incorporate human factors into the interactive multimedia courseware development process. Three types of testing to identify human factors issues in courseware are discussed: usability testing, pilot testing, and field testing. (Author/LRW)

Discusses highlights of a literature review on guidelines for formative evaluation of courseware and the development of a formative evaluation instrument by the Kanata High Technology Training Association (Ottawa). The eight dimensions of the resultant questionnaire are listed and a copy of the evaluation instrument is included. (MBR)

Discussion of the evaluation of educational software highlights two evaluation methods: (1) the York Educational Software Evaluation Scales (YESES), a criterion-based evaluation, and (2) a field-testing approach developed at York University. Guidelines for the field-testing approach include an emphasis on the observation of students. (22…

Discusses the development and field testing of a prototype genetics tutor program for microcomputers written in Turbo Pascal. A preliminary field test with undergraduates is described that was used as formative evaluation, and suggestions are given for designing a more effective tutor that uses additional intelligent computer-assisted instruction…

Introduces the concept of abductive reasoning; discusses its importance for instructional designers in education; and describes the development of a computer program called the Abductive Reasoning Tool (ART) that helps students learn and understand abductive logic. Highlights include abduction and creativity, and field-testing ART with…

Respondents to a survey of educational software producers to determine extent to which computer assisted instruction courseware is fieldtested, and what this process involves, indicate that 52% fieldtested all their software. The relevance of these results to school media specialists and their role in selecting and evaluating software is…

Describes a new model for evaluating instructional software that focuses on the extent to which students learn the skills a software package is intended to teach. Results of a field test of fifth grade students are reported, and implications of the initial evaluation of the model are discussed. (14 references) (LRW)