Three members of the Ohio State University Astronomy department developed an audiovisual program in Astronomy to provide a format for more active student participation than is possible in large lecture sessions. The program consists of 18 filmstrip/cassette modules and an integrated textbook which were utilized on an individual basis, allowing…

A comparison between achievement test scores in a life science course for students in audiotutorial sections and those in conventional lecture-laboratory sections was made during the fall of 1973. The comparison indicated that student achievement, as measured by percentage scores on unit tests plus a final examination, was almost identical between…

This paper describes the results of a three-way evaluation of traditional, televised, and individually-paced instruction in beginning graphics courses. The purpose of the study was to determine mean gain scores for students in each of the three groups. In order to disguise the experiment, no attempt was made to randomly assign subjects to groups,…

The extent of use of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), also called the Keller Plan, at a large university campus was investigated. Attention was also directed to the features of PSI used: mastery criterion, self-pacing, proctors, number of times students could retake an exam, and the number of forms of each examination used. The PSI…

Research designed to compare student satisfaction between a traditional-lecture psychology course and a personalized system of instruction (PSI) course is described. Students compared two identical courses in personality taught by the same instructor. Students were generally more satisfied with the PSI course. The results are that they found the…

An experiment compared three methods of instruction in an introductory course in psychology. The first method utilized groups of three students and required that all three students meet the criterion on each unit of material in the course before being allowed to continue on to other units. This system also required that students do all remediation…

A two-quarter Human Anatomy and Physiology course for health-science students has been developed which incorporates the principles of individualization while maintaining the lecture hall setting. The lecture method contributes the following components to the course: (1) no special equipment or supplies; (2) personal interaction between instructor…

This study, conducted at the University of Memphis (Tennessee), compared the effects of a self-paced method of instruction on the attitudes and perceptions of students enrolled in an undergraduate statistics course with those of a comparable group of students taking statistics in a traditional lecture setting. The non-traditional course used a…

Expectations of 432 college students regarding the following six teaching formats were studied: lecture, discussion, laboratory, personalized attention, computer-assisted instruction, and television instruction. Factor analysis procedures revealed three factors for each format: (1) evaluative had characteristics of preference and goodness and/or…

This research examined interactions between internal-external locus of control and other student characteristics, and lectures and two variants of the Personalized System of Instruction. The three treatments varied in degree of study guidance. The research was done with 60 college freshmen in an introductory course on psychodiagnostics. The…

A Mississippi study examined the effects of two instructional techniques using the Ford power train unit as an instructional aid. Eight schools were randomly selected from a population of 33 vocational agricultural departments. Three schools with 10 students from each school were randomly selected and assigned to treatment A, traditional…

The Math Center described in this report operates at Pima Community College to provide individualized, self-paced instruction as an alternative to lecture courses. The report first describes the Center's staff organization and then examines seven courses offered through the Center on remedial, vocational, and transfer levels. Each of these courses…

The paper discusses a study in which a cognitive mapping test was used to evaluate the effectiveness of different teaching methods used in a college level introductory economics course. Cognitive style mapping is a method of studying learner characteristics in order to individualize instruction. The hypothesis was that certain cognitive learning…

This paper outlines a method of transforming traditional learning methods into a competency-based approach in a series of steps. The paper is organized in three sections. The first section defines competency-based education (CBE) and explains how this approach differs from traditional education. It also advances reasons why the competency-based…

The effects of mastery learning strategies, interactive video mathematics (IVM), individualized instruction (IND), and the lecture method on mathematics achievement of community college students was studied. Interactions among instructional methods, gender, and age were examined; and the grade success rate was determined for each instructional…