Computer-assisted Instruction System Research Articles

An overview of STEAMER: An advanced computer-assisted instruction system for propulsion engineering

We are building a computer-based instructional system for teaching the operation of complex physical mechanisms. The system is based intimately on the use of simulation. Our goal in this paper is to describe the system we are attempting to construct, discuss its origins, and identify what we perceive to be its implications for psychological research into instruction.

BAND AID: First steps toward an ICAI system

BANDAID is an intelligent computer-assisted instruction (ICAI) system designed for students learning to program in BASIC. The major thesis is that beginning students need a friendly environment, that is, one in which information about the language and the system are immediately available. The system accepts most commands without switching levels: BASIC lines are parsed on input with very specific error messages. An editor allows corrections of BASIC lines. The program can be traced while running, and an indefinite number of HELP comments can be written for the system. Without leaving the BASIC environment, the user can interact with the CMS monitor of the main machine running the program. Although no English language comments or questions are allowed, the system is modular so that additions of restrictive dialogue interaction and guided tutoring are possible. Illustrations are presented showing the capabilities of the system. The paper also presents some of the implementation details of BANDAID. A flexible system requires implementation in LISP, so examples of how the system programmer interacts with LISP during debugging are given. Although still incomplete, the system runs satisfactorily and can be used easily by beginning students and by psychologists interested in how people learn complex subjects.

Individualised college teaching

Individualised instruction has grown in importance in education in the last few decades. Its increasing importance is clearly shown by the rise in the number of publications in this area in recent years. The ~&cation Index listed four or five articles per year on individualised instruction during the forties and fifties, 35 articles per year during the sixties, and over a hundred articles a year during the seventies (Kozak, 1974). The growth in interest in individualised instruction has been especially dramatic at the college level. After Skinner's (1954) development of teaching machines, college teachers began experimenting with various techniques for individualising college teaching, including programmed learning, computer-assisted instruction and total system of self-paced learning such as Keller's

Evaluation of the TICCIT computer-assisted instructional system in the community college

Evaluation of the TICCIT computer-assisted instructional system in the community college

Objective and alternatives for a computer assisted instruction system for the visually handicapped

In computer assisted instruction (CAI), a dialogue of information can be maintained between the computer and a learner without dependence upon normal vision. This is possible because there are several media alternatives for information input to the learner. These alternatives include large print (visual), braille (tactile), the OPTACON reading system (tactile), and auding (auditory). The criteria used to evaluate each medium for information input include the percentage of the visually handicapped population that can use the medium, the requirements for recoding information for the medium, learner skill development for using the recoded information, the words-per-minute information transfer of the medium, and its instructional effectiveness. The criteria used to evaluate each medium for CAI application are the following: the technological feasibility of integrating it into a CAI system; the recoding of the instructional material for use through the medium; and the cost of the medium. The following discussion is divided into three main sections: the primary design objective of computer assisted instruction for the visually handicapped, alternatives to visual communication, and selection of a nonvisual medium for computer assisted instruction.

Toward optimal allocation of instructional resources: Dividing computer-assisted instruction time among students

This paper deals with the question of how to best allocate a finite instructional resource among different students — specifically how to divide time on a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system among a number of eligible students.

Teaching a computer to teach

The long-range goal of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) should be to construct computer programs that interact with a student as a human tutor does. In order to make computers act as intelligent tutors, we must consider three aspects of teaching; (1) A tutor makes use of many different knowledge sources. (2) A tutorial session is a kind of problem-solving situation in which the tutor is trying to solve the problem of imparting understanding to the student. (3) There is an analogy between the process of communication and those of teaching in that both require the participants to make a number of inferences about each other’s states and responses. A tutor designs an “instructional act,” anticipating how the student will interpret and learn from it, and the student interprets and learns from the instruction in a manner that depends on his hypotheses about the intent of the tutor. The paper reviews the relevant literature and discusses how we will incorporate such ideas into CAI systems.

A Microcomputer/Videodisc CAI System for the Moderately Mentally Retarded

A study is currently being conducted at Utah State University's Exceptional Child Center to develop, and investigate the effectiveness of, a computer assisted instruction system designed for use with non-readers. The system will utilize the recently developed random access videodisc interfaced with a microcomputer. Software is being developed to utilize these new technological hardware advances. If the evaluation shows the system to be cost and instructionally effective it will provide a means of providing self-paced, individualized instruction to mentally handicapped non-readers without the direct attendance of the teacher and will provide an automated means of collecting, analyzing and reporting extensive student data.

The Query Analysis System: A New Tool for Increasing the Effectiveness of Library Utilization by Sociology Students

we constructed a computer-assisted instructional tool-the Query Analysis System. Our fundamental objective was to design a system which would provide linkages among the language of the student, the conceptual terminology of sociology, and the classification descriptors used by reference librarians and professional indexers and abstractors. Students are thereby aided in focusing their research questions and in identifying appropriate library reference tools. Students now using this system are adding to the original data base. Hence, it will continue to grow empirically from the initial 2,500 terms and associated relationships into a fuller and more responsive reflection of the structure of sociological language.

An interactive data-generating and answer-correcting system for problems in statistics

A computer-assisted instructional system is described which provides the student with extensive drill and feedback in the application of statistical methods to computer-simulated data. The system consists of three interactive programs that perform the following functions: (1) FILEMAKE creates “source” data for problems in statistics having whatever population characteristics are desired by the instructor; (2) DATASET generates unique data for each student by performing a random modification, based on sampling theory, of the source data; and (3) CORRECT corrects each student’s unique answers to the problem.

AVID: An intelligent CAI system for small computers

A computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system which includes facilities for interactive graphics and for limited natural language processing has been implemented on a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer. Lesson authoring aids permit inexperienced authors to create lessons with ease and permit transporting lessons to and from other systems. The system supports eight simultaneous independent users and provides facilities for student performance evaluation and record management.

Intelligent computer-assisted instruction

A description is provided for an intelligent computer-assisted instruction system (BANDAID) which is in an early stage of development.

A multimethod generative CAI system for remedial mathematics

A computer-assisted instruction system for remedial mathematics has been written to yield four teaching methods based on two orthogonal variables: (1) With ad hoc frame orientation (AFO), training modules have a fixed order for all students, strict performance criteria must be met before moving to new modules, and students can ask only for problem solutions. With information structure orientation (ISO), the first two AFO conditions are dropped and students can also request partial answers and hints. (2) A confluent (affective) mode contrasts with didactic instruction by adding use of given names, self-report of moods, relaxation procedures, some communication with another student, and so on.

A computer assisted instruction system for digital engineering education

A computer assisted instruction (CAI) system has been developed at the Twente University of Technology. Holland, for use in association with a first course in digital engineering. It is written in the general purpose high level language. APL, and is designed to be modular in nature and thus easily extendible. The generality and flexibility of the CAI-system structure is such that applications in other branches of engineering or scientific education can readily be accommodated.

Transfer of a Computer-Assisted Instrument Procedures Trainer to Flight

A simple, comparatively inexpensive instrument flight trainer based on computer-assisted instruction (CAI) technology was compared with more traditional devices in training 48 private pilots to fly a standard instrument procedure. Groups of students were trained using either (a) CAI and aircraft training, (b) ground school, ground-based trainer and aircraft training, or (c) ground school and aircraft training. Both the CAI system and the general aviation flight trainer were found to provide similar magnitude of transfer to the aircraft. The results suggest that substantial cost benefit could be derived by substituting such CAI training for more costly higher fidelity training in the flight training curriculum.

CAI with a restricted vocabulary

Text compression techniques can be applied to computer assisted instruction (CAI) text to reduce both computer storage requirements and volume of transmission between the computer and student terminals. One of the more efficient text compression algorithms requires a large dictionary. containing all the words in the text. Unfortunately, the use of a large dictionary is not feasible with many current CAI systems. This study investigates some implications of authoring CAI text using words from a short dictionary established prior to writing the text. A dictionary of approximately one thousand words was defined. Author subjects wrote two sets of CAI text: one in natural English and one using words from the short dictionary. The natural English text was compressible to about two-thirds of the normal computer storage requirements; the restricted English, to less than one-third. There was no significant difference in the instructional value of the different types of text.

An unobtrusive computer monitor for multi-step problem solving

This paper describes a procedural means for designing computer-assisted instructional (CAI) systems called Unobtrusive Problem Solving Monitors (UPSM'S) which (1) monitor students solving multi-step problems and (2) offer useful, pertinent advice to the student based on the prior student input history. These systems represent a conceptual advance over earlier types of systems in that they allow students to enter intermediate results of their problem solving activity, yet also allow them to discover and correct any errors in these results without unsolicited prompting from the system. At the same time, they can offer specific advice generated from a student's intermediate results whenever requested. These features allow students to obtain the benefits of problem solving in an unhindered, unguided fashion, yet allow them to request help when it is needed. This paper also outlines a prototype UPSM system that has been implemented in the area of plane geometry. This implementation incorporates a problem solver that solves portions of the problems under consideration while generating structured, verbalized descriptions of the solution process which are used as sources of incremental advice for the student. Because the problem solver attempts to extend lines of reasoning started by the student, the advice that is generated allows the geometry UPSM to adapt its responses to a variety of student input histories.

Real-time simulation in computer-assisted instruction

Large scale computer-assisted instruction systems generally impose severe constraints upon the demands that individual users may make. Nevertheless, it is possible to overcome these problems and a program is described which teaches students how to fly a specific maneuver through real-time simulation of the flight of a student-controlled “airplane”. This is achieved in spite of the fact that the student is “flying” his “plane” through the use of a manually controlled analog input device. Both computational and educational implications are discussed.

Population Education through Computer Generated Graphics

The Population Dynamics Group (P.D.G.) computer assisted instruction system is designed to communicate information concerning (a) the structure and dynamics of population and (b) the relationship between population and issues such as economic development, food demand and supply, energy use, etc. This paper focuses on the population model and describes the interactive graphics program as it operates on the University of Illinois PLATO IV system. The P.D.G. programs are a good example of the ability to use currently available developments in computer technology to transmit information in a flexible, interactive and graphic format for instructional purposes.

SMITH: How to produce CAI courses without programming

A computer-assisted instruction system (called SMITH † ), has been developed. SMITH relieves the course author of the burden of computer programming, thus greatly reducing course preparation time. The author writes his normal instructional text, divides it into frames (suitable for screen presentation), and describes each frame in terms of the topics it covers. He may also establish precedence and some other relations between frames. From then on SMITH structures the material and displays it to each student in a tutorial mixedinitiative mode, tailoring the presentation according to the student's characteristics, performance and requests. SMITH is, in fact, an instructional information-retrieval system, provided with a teaching strategy. This new type of system, which may be called IRO-CAI (for information-retrieval oriented CAI), employs special purpose algorithms in order to make intelligent use of minimal content information provided by the author. In this way it is possible to provide CAI in an efficient and adaptive manner without demanding an unrealistic time investment from the author.