INVESTIGATION OF COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF INTELLIGENT COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTIONS ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF JORDANIAN FRESHMAN STUDENTS

This is an investigation into the effectiveness of Intelligent Computer Assisted Instructions technology on the achievement of Jordanian Freshman students. An experiment was designed for this purpose which employed "time series measures non-equivalent experimental control group design". The population of the experiment was the entering freshman students registering for course Computer Science CS103 in fall semester of 1986. Two "non-equivalent" groups were chosen, an experimental group or E-Group and a control group or C-group. The experimental design tested the hypotheses: (1) H0. There is no statistically significant difference in the mean of the multi-variate vector of the achievement and attitude test scores of students taught by the ICAI method and the traditional lecture method. (2) H1. The mean of the multi-variate vector of the attitude and achievement test scores of students taught by the ICAI method is greater than that of the traditional lecture method.;The independent variable of the study was the teaching method (ICAI and Traditional). The dependent variables were achievement and attitude of the students of the population.;Analysis of the achievement scores and the attitude questionaire were done using the SPSS computer program running on the VAX-11/780 System. The analysis showed that the ICAI method of instruction mean scores were significantly higher than those of the traditional method. The multivariate null hypothesis of no treatment effect is strongly rejected. Treatment by sex clearly showed no interaction effect.;The results of this study clearly reject the null hypothesis of method effect (no differences in achievement scores of students taught by the two methods) in both the MANOVA as well as in the ANOVA conducted separately on the total achievement score. Moreover, in the comparisons based upon all the 823 students taken as control group, the experimental group (ICAI group) scored significantly higher on the total of the three tests.;The effectiveness of a tutoring system is universally assessed in terms of students achievement test scores, at times, supplemented by their scores on measures of attitudes and feelings. On both counts, the findings of this study speak unequivocably for the effectiveness of the ICAI method. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).