The effect of advisement and goal orientation on mastery in a computer-based tutorial and simulation

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the interaction of two advisement conditions (evaluative or adaptive) with goal orientation (learning or performance) and its impact on the ability of learners to achieve mastery when the instructional strategy made use of a combined tutorial and simulation instructional approach. The need for adult learners to transfer learning into the workplace demands that researchers consider how learners are impacted by new instructional approaches. It was anticipated that the findings would provide instructional designers with guidance on how to balance the quality triangle of time, cost, and quality when developing instruction. Suggestions based on educational and learning theory that improves quality without changing time or cost issues are needed. Participants completed a computer-based instructional unit that used a tutorial to present content, including an instructional simulation, followed by an assessment simulation. One week later, participants completed a performance-based assessment to measure the attainment of the performance-based objectives. Prior studies suggest that learning-oriented learners will outperform performance-oriented learners, and that adaptive advisement learners will outperform evaluative advisement learners on mastery attainment scores. However, research is unclear about the interaction of advisement and goal orientation, and the subsequent choices made by learners in computer-based instruction. Four hypotheses were tested in the study with an alpha level of .05 used for all statistical tests. While no statistically significant interaction or main effects were revealed, there are some promising areas for instructional designers to consider. Limitations of the study include the use of an all female sample from an urban southern university and the high number of learners who were both high learning-oriented and high performance-oriented. Suggestions for future research include the need to understand which learners are more likely to follow the advisement given, and how assessment of performance-based objectives varies between academic and work place environments.