| Description |
Since their development 30 years ago, computers have been used for educational purposes. The dream of giving every student a tutor who was always available, nonjudgmental, and infinitely patient has fueled attempts at developing truly effective teaching programs. The field of computer assisted instruction (CAI) has greatly benefited from the advances made in electrical engineering and computer science; these advances have kept the dream alive. The hundreds of studies done on CAI have proven it to be effective as traditional forms of learning at all levels of education but little research has been done to optimize the computer systems used. Towards that end a CAI program was developed to teach radiology residents how to interpret magnetic resonance images of the cranial nerves. Our program, call "The Cranial Nerve Atlas," incorporates line drawings, magnetic resonance images, gross anatomy images, and a pathophysiology tutorial section with over 100 case studies. Two version of the program, a linear and a hypermedia version, were used to test the hypothesis that hypermedia was superior to linear programming for educational purposes. The subjects used in this experiment were radiology residents at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. The results were analyzed using a 2 x 2 x 2 mixed factorial analysis. No statistically significant differences were found between the two group (linear and hypermedia). The author would caution again any final conclusion being drawn from these data, however, because there were many extenuating circumstances that influenced and potentially biased the data. The experiment does provide a blueprint for repeating and improving this experiment and that may be its greatest value. |
