A comparison of four methods of teaching psychomotor activities to elementary school children from varying socioeconomic levels

Abstract

The results of this investigation showed that significant differences did exist at the 01 level among instructional treatments. A comparison of mean performance scores across groups (rows) and tasks (columns) showed that instructional treatments ranked as follows: 1) self-instruction, 2) lecturedemonstration (classroom), 3) lecture-demonstration (television), and 4) minimal-instruction. The socioeconomic background of subjects did not influence instructional treatment. Subjects from all three socioeconomic levels learned best from self-instruction. Under the conditions of this study, time was not a significant factor or causal effect in differences that resulted among instructional treatments. Self-instruction was found to be the most effective method of teaching subjects from different socioeconomic levels to perform manipulatory tasks. This study substantiates the findings of an early experiment conducted by Calder (1966) with college students.