ACQUISITION OF OPERATIONAL PROFICIENCY IN SELECTED AUDIOVISUAL EQUIPMENT THROUGH THREE ALTERNATIVE INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative effectiveness of three different instructional methodologies to teach students to operate audiovisual equipment. The problem was to provide audiovisual competency to a large number of students with little increase in instructional staff.;This study compared the effectiveness of three teaching methods on learning to operate two items of equipment. The null hypotheses were: (1) There are no significant differences among the programmed text, the mediated module, or the teacher demonstration groups in learning to operate the filmstrip projector. (2) There are no significant differences among the programmed text, the mediated module, or the teacher demonstration groups in learning to operate the 16mm film projector.;The procedure utilized a pre-test to group students into randomized groups, and to eliminate those who knew how to operate both projectors. There were 45 students assigned to the randomized blocks. The same test were given as a post-test, but scored differently. The students did an individualized post-test on both items of equipment within a 24-hour period. An analysis of variance for a single factor experiment was used in a comparison of the effectiveness of the three treatments. There was only a 2.5 variance among the means for the filmstrip projector, while a variance of 1.8 was shown for the 16mm film projector.;A post-mortem on the pre-post test results was conducted to determine if any gains had been made from the pre to the post-test with a repeated measures design. A two-way analysis of variance summed the results. The results failed to reject the hypotheses as stated. There was no significant difference among the three teaching methods in learning to operate the two projectors.;The study was conducted at a midwestern women's college during the 1980-81 school year. The subjects were 45 freshmen from teacher education utilizing two items of equipment, the film-strip projector and the 16mm film projector. The three methods were the programmed text, mediated modules, and teacher demonstration. Three professors participated, one for each group.