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The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship among students' reports about their goal orientation, self-efficacy and self-regulated strategy, use and their academic performance in a Computer Literacy course as indicated by course grade. Also investigated were students' reports about their most preferred and utilized study techniques and the techniques they used to monitor their learning in this course. All participants in this study were students in a general studies Computer Literacy course at a large university in the southwestern United States. Three sets of analyses were conducted and results are organized accordingly. The first set consisted of multiple regression analyses examining the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) responses and their relationship to course grade. In the second set of analyses, frequencies of responses and the thematic categories to the eight study-habit questions were determined. In the last set of analyses, the students' answers to the selected-response general course questions were analyzed and summarized. Results of this study portray a complex combination of the motivation and learning strategies utilized by college students in a Computer Literacy course. Overall, the results appear to indicate that these students held both extrinsic and intrinsic goal orientations at the same time. (Contains 27 references.) (AEF)

A qualitative study was conducted to determine the perceptions of preservice teachers on how computers will be used in schools in the future. Undergraduate students (n=40) were given a 60-minute multimedia presentation on how computer and multimedia technologies are used in schools, followed by group discussions on the ways in which computers will be used in schools in 10 years, and an assigned one-page essay addressing the topic. The study revealed that preservice teachers have high expectations for using computers in their classrooms, some of which are unrealistic for the next 10 years. Many students felt that assignments and materials will be accessed via electronic mail or the Internet (n=37); software will be personalized, self-paced, and written by students (n=32); virtual reality, CD-ROMs, and holograms will be commonplace (n=31); and computers will be voice-activated and have touch-screens (n=30). Other students felt the teacher will still be the center of the classroom and computers will be used for grades and attendance records (n=25); every student will have a computer (n=23); computers will replace books and floppy disks will replace paper (n=18); computers will control fire drills, demonstrations, and career exploration (n=13); computer equipment will not be expensive and computer access will be limited (n=1). Student perceptions and further research are discussed. (Contains 10 references.) (SWC)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the achievement and attitudinal effects of navigational behavior patterns and learner option choices in using a hypermedia-based computer-assisted instruction (CAI) unit designed for college students. Also investigated were the effects of two incentive structures on achievement and attitudes, as well as the relationships among prior interest, experience, achievement, and attitudes. Students were randomly assigned to either a task-incentive or performance-incentive version of a HyperCard instructional program on a tribe of prehistoric Native Americans of the Southwest United States. Multiple regression analysis revealed that total time spent on instruction and practice and the number of times previous and back selections were made were significant predictors of achievement. Type of incentive did not yield a significant difference in posttest scores or attitudes between treatments. Overall, subjects had positive attitudes toward the instructional program. Furthermore, the study found that there may be a relationship between prior experience and CAI assisted achievement. The results of this study suggest that college students may be able to judge well the fashion in which they need to review previously viewed screens in computer programs in order to receive higher posttest scores. (Contains 24 references.) (Author/AEF)

In order to investigate how attitudes among preservice teachers are influenced by participation in a computer literacy course and to test the utility of an attitude questionnaire, a study was conducted with 75 college preservice teachers (56 females and 19 males). The course was developed to teach the use and understanding of computer technologies in an educational setting. Seventy-three students completed the Computer Literacy Attitude Survey, developed for this study, at the beginning of the course, and 65 completed it at the end of the course. Participation in the course appeared to improve student attitudes toward computers and their use. After completing the course, students had less anxiety and more confidence, and they generally valued computers more. Students also evaluated the course favorably, commenting on its clarity and utility. Three tables present study findings. (Contains 26 references.) (SLD)

This paper provides a definition of interactive multimedia and explains why it is of interest to teachers and trainers, how it is produced and utilized, and how the role of teachers may be changed. It also offers recommendations for teacher trainers. Multimedia is defined as the combination of technologies such as computer text, video, audio, graphics, and animation, and it is argued that multimedia technologies offer unique opportunities to learners to access information by selecting highlighted words or icons. Choice of a word or icon enables the learner to select the order in which lessons are presented, skip unneeded lessons, access help screens, repeat a particular lesson, receive additional examples, or take a test. This ability to link items of related information in a non-linear fashion is known as hypermedia. It is noted that use of multimedia technology provides the opportunity for learning experiences that would otherwise be difficult for teachers to incorporate, such as computer simulations of dangerous chemical reactions and computer software that allows medical students to practice life-and-death procedures without harm to real patients. Research indicates that the use of multimedia technology results in significant changes in the teacher's role due to the increase in learner controlled instruction. It is recommended that teachers receive appropriate training in the use of multimedia technologies and their applications in the classroom. (17 references) (DB)

This paper argues that formative evaluation of instruction, which is generally agreed to be critical for instruction in any medium, is even more crucial when the instruction is to be delivered by interactive technologies such as computers, interactive video, hypermedia, or the various forms of interactive multimedia systems. It begins by discussing formative evaluation as a formal step in instructional development models, noting that the models rarely specify where in the process such evaluation should take place. The foundational assumptions and biases of the paper are then discussed, including the current controversy over qualitative and quantitative research and various issues involved in selecting the research methods to be used. Several types of data collection and analysis methods that can be used to answer important questions concerned with interactive instructional technologies are considered, and the use of a method that is appropriate to answer the particular evaluation questions involved is advocated. A discussion of the benefits of considering alternate methods of formative evaluation introduces a review of the results of evaluations of the overall effectiveness of interactive technology-based instructional programs, primarily computer assisted instruction and interactive video. An overview of planning and conducting formative evaluations as an on-going process through all phases of design and development is then presented. Multiple methods for collecting and analyzing data are also reviewed, with emphasis on the selection of appropriate methods. Suggestions for reporting the results and a summary of some of the major considerations in conducting formative evaluations conclude this paper. (63 references) (BBM)

A computer-based interactive video was developed in 1985 for the Texas Learning Technology Group (TLTG) Project, a partnership formed by the Texas Association of School Boards, the National Science Center Foundation, and 12 Texas school districts in response to the national and state crisis in science, math, and technology education. A pilot test of a semester-long high school chemistry curriculum delivered by TLTG was conducted during the 1987-1988 school year, in part to investigate teacher attitudes and teacher implementation behavior. Twenty-six teachers participated in the interactive videodisc (IVD) study, which also made use of records of 2,297 students and achievement data collected from a sample of the students (N = 338). The major findings revealed that IVD students generally achieved higher scores than non-IVD students; IVD students indicated a greater degree of intention to enroll in an elective science course than control students; most teachers liked using the curriculum and found it easier to teach than the traditional curricula; all teachers used supplemental materials in conjunction with the curriculum; and all teachers felt that their students had learned more using the TLTG curriculum than they had learned in previous years. Both videotaped classroom observations of the TLTG curriculum and staff visits to all of the school districts using the curriculum were made during the pilot year. A new evaluation plan has been formulated for the field test year of the TLTG evaluation (1988-1989), and data are being collected on the actual on-site implementation of the TLTG field test curriculum. (4 references) (CGD)

A study was conducted to explore teacher training needs related to effective use of technology in the classroom, with the specific objective of helping to improve a state-required, one-credit media competency course taken by approximately 250 teacher credential candidates each semester at a major California university. One of three surveys was administered to incoming teacher credential candidates to determine their media skills and opinions. Of the 161 students who completed the pre-course questionnaire, 103 (64%) had some experience producing instructional media, and 124 (77%) had used computer software for word processing, entertainment and educational games, spreadsheets, database packages, or programming languages. Final course evaluations indicated that 68% of the 476 students who completed the evaluations strongly agreed or agreed that they liked the course, and 86% said they would use what they had learned in a course of their teaching. A survey of 22 new teachers was conducted at the end of their first year of teaching. They described the media they had used and produced during the past year; the most common application of computers in their classrooms; the most useful media skills they had learned; the media that they most wanted to learn about; and ways in which they felt educational technology would change teaching in the next 5 years. Responses to a survey of the opinions of seven teacher education block leaders indicated that they taught objective writing and lesson planning, and most agreed that they preferred that these topics not be taught in the media courses. They also expressed their opinions on the ways in which they felt technology would change the teacher's role and responsibilities in the next 5 years. (6 references) (CGD)

This study was conducted to investigate the attitudinal effects of presenting students with career information in two media forms, slide/tape and print. Subjects were 186 ninth-grade students from a junior high school in a lower-middle-class metropolitan area. Interviews with role models working in careers not traditional for their gender were used as a means of presenting the career information in both the slide/tape and print treatment groups. Students in a control group received no career information. All students completed an occupational survey to assess their attitudes about the suitability of eight jobs for both men and women and their own interest in and confidence of success in the jobs. The data were analyzed using three separate multivariate analyses of variance. Students in both the slide/tape and print treatments were significantly more positive about the careers being suitable for both men and women than were students in the control group. Subjects also showed more positive attitudes toward jobs they learned about than jobs they did not learn about. Attitudes of students in the print group did not differ significantly from those in the slide/tape group. Students were significantly more interested in and confident of success in jobs traditionally for their own gender, and neither presentation had a significant effect on interest and confidence. Although both types of presentations produced positive changes in attitudes towards suitability of careers for both men and women, more comprehensive programs appear necessary to increase the probability of changes in interest and confidence of success in nontraditional careers. (Author/KC)

National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC) are required to develop and implement education and outreach opportunities related to their core technical research topics to broaden participation in engineering and create partnerships between industry and academia. Additionally, ERCs must include an independent evaluation of their education and outreach programming to assess their performance and impacts. To date, each ERC's evaluation team designs its instruments/tools and protocols for evaluation, resulting in idiosyncratic and redundant efforts. Nonetheless, there is much overlap among the evaluation topics, concepts, and practices, suggesting that the ERC evaluation and assessment community might benefit from having a common set of instruments and protocols. ERCs' efforts could then be better spent developing more specific, sophisticated, and time-intensive evaluation tools to deepen and enrich the overall ERC evaluation efforts. The implementation of such a suite of instruments would further allow each ERC to compare its efforts to those across other ERCs as one data point for assessing its effectiveness and informing its improvement efforts. Members of a multi-ERC collaborative team, funded by the NSF, have been leading a project developing a suite of common instruments and protocols which contains both quantitative and qualitative tools. This paper reports on the development of a set of qualitative instruments that, to date, includes the following: (a) a set of interview/focus group protocols intended for various groups of ERC personnel, centered around five common topics/areas, and (b) rubrics for summer program participants' verbal poster/presentations and their written poster/slide deck presentation artifacts. The development process is described sequentially, beginning with a review of relevant literature and existing instruments, followed by the creation of an initial set of interview questions and rubric criteria. The initial versions of the tools were then pilot-tested with multiple ERCs. Feedback sessions with education/evaluation leaders of those piloting ERCs were then conducted, through which further revision efforts were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Complete Research paper describes a one-lesson instructional module introducing biogeotechnical engineering that has been developed by an interdisciplinary team of engineers and educators for use in freshman-level introduction to engineering courses. The primary aims in developing the module were to educate incoming engineering students regarding the field of biogeotechnics and motivate them to pursue it further. Expanding research and innovation in this emerging area requires providing students with an understanding of the principles of this new paradigm for developing sustainable solutions in geotechnical engineering applications. Field trials of the instructional module, which included pre-and post-assessments, were conducted in two sections of a freshman engineering course at a large southwestern university in the United States. Evaluation data were collected regarding student knowledge gains and attitudes. Both the overall gain in technical knowledge and positive attitudes toward the field of biogeotechnical engineering were reflected in participant responses. With the advent and development of this new field, this work represents a pioneering effort in the biogeotechnical engineering education space. Looking ahead, the study could contribute toward longitudinal research in understanding the best practices of interdisciplinary approaches to developing engineering instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]