Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

A comparison of the relative effectiveness of teaching composition by closed-circuit television and by conventional classroom procedures

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  • This study was designed to test the relative effectiveness of teaching Writing 111 at Oregon State University by closed-circuit television as compared with conventional classroom procedures; the hypothesis was that the students taught by television (the experimental group) would achieve as well as the students taught in conventional classrooms (the control group) in terms of writing samples. The experimental group was comprised of 130 students at Oregon State University, taking Writing 111 on closed-circuit television during the Winter term of 1965. An attempt was made to match each of these students with a student of comparable skill in writing, drawn from 2,577 students of the same university (the control group), taking Writing 111 in conventional classes during the Fall term of 1964. Pairs from the experimental and control groups were matched on the basis of scores on the writing samples. An IBM card-sort procedure was used to match 38 pairs on this basis from the experimental and control groups. A computation of the differences between the 38 pairs showed that the experimental and control groups were statistically comparable. Pairs were arranged in sub-groups on the basis of achievement on the pre-test: the highest third, the middle third, and the lowest third. Achievement comparisons were later made for these sub-groups. Writing samples were used as the criterion measures for both the pre-test and the post-test. Together they provided the criteria for testing the assumption and the hypothesis. The assumption that learning did occur in the experimental and control groups was tested by comparing the average score of each individual of a pair on the pre-test and post-test. Subtracting the score on the pre-test from the score on the post-test established whether or not the groups had made a mean gain in achievement. The hypothesis that Writing 111 could be taught as effectively on television as in conventional classrooms was tested in terms of the average scores of each pair on the post-test: the differences between the scores of each of the 38 pairs was computed by subtracting the control student's average score from the experimental student's average score. A t-test of significance was used to determine the statistical level of significance of these differences. However, in order to be employed as matching and achievement criteria, the writing samples had to be reliable measures of writing skill; i.e. the scores on these tests had to reflect the writing achievement of the students rather than the subjective judgments of the graders. To check the reliability of the scoring of the writing samples, a correlation coefficient was computed on the scores given by the three graders of these samples. The resulting coefficients established the reliability of the scoring of the writing samples. All the reliability coefficients were at or above .70, an acceptable level for the purposes of this investigation, and thus justified the use of writing samples as criterion measures for matching pairs and testing the hypothesis and assumption. The assumption was confirmed: both experimental and control groups showed a mean gain in achievement. The hypothesis was also confirmed. There was no statistically significant difference between the achievement gains of the experimental and control groups; hence students taught by television achieved as well as students taught in conventional classes in terms of writing samples. The low experimental sub-group made a greater gain, in relation to the comparable control sub-group, than did the other experimental sub-groups.
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