Emerging information technologies, psychological type, and learning styles: Evaluating competing methodologies for teaching television lighting

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of three instructional methodologies for teaching television lighting methods when compared to individual learning styles. The methodologies included an illustrated text, an interactive CD-ROM, and a non-interactive, linear videotape. The learning styles were determined with the Myers-Briggs psychological type questionnaire. Performance was measured on a posttest of lighting knowledge.;The experimental design was a 4 x 4 x 2 matrix, with the 16 Myers-Briggs psychological types collapsed into 4 quadrants, a control group and three instructional treatments, and gender. Of the total of 166 undergraduate students who participated in the experiment, 63% were female, and 56% were communications majors.;There are four dimensions to the learning styles based on the Myers-Briggs. This study focused on two of those dimensions: how people interact with their world, and how they gather and process information. The interactions are called extroversion and introversion, and the information-gathering processes are called sensing and intuition. Combining both dimensions produces quadrants (e.g., introverted intuitive). The efficacy of instructional methodologies was examined for the four quadrants.;It was predicted that the CD-ROM, a technically more sophisticated version of the familiar interactive videodisc, would be more effective on a posttest of lighting knowledge, principles, and practices than would a traditional videotape, or a text version of the identical information. The CD-ROM, which featured full-motion video and audio, and an interactive simulation of a lighting setup for a television news interview, was found to be significantly more effective for the introverted sensing (IS) quadrant learning style on the posttest when the CD-ROM was the preferred instructional methodology. The CD-ROM was less effective than the videotape for extroverted sensing (ES) quadrant learning styles, whereas the IN quadrant learning styles performed equally well whether they preferred the CD-ROM, text or hands-on instructional methodologies. Significant differences were also found for intuitive dimension learning styles in the video instructional condition. These preferences in instructional methodologies by Myers-Briggs learning style quadrant were the same as had been previously identified as being appropriate to the learning style associated with that quadrant.