Development and Evaluation of Computer-Assisted Instruction in the Methods of Scientific Sociology

本计画提出利用多媒体、互动、教学设计的新特性，开发约十个电脑程式。这些课程将加强对社会科学中定量/统计推理基本要素的概念性学习：批判性思维技能、概率、概念建模和假设构建、统计建模、抽样和推理。教学设计技术用于改善学生的学习：互动反馈、学习者控制、主动学习、概念映射和绩效跟踪。这些模块将使用AUTHORWARE编写，这是一种应用程序开发工具，可以创建可执行的程序，既可以作为常驻软件，也可以使用AUTHORWARE的浏览器插件SHOCKWAVE在内部网上执行。这些应用程序的开发解决了定量统计推理教学中遇到的一个主要问题-如何提高学生对统计推理中使用的基本概念的理解，概念之间的联系，以及它们在解决现实世界问题中的作用，特别是在数学教育不足的学生中。这些模块将在一个名为社会学定量研究实验室的实验室中使用，该实验室是由美国国家科学基金会ILI资助的。这些模块将把“概念学习”工具添加到现有的“计算学习”实验室工具中。在方法入门课程中使用学生进行实验设计，以评估学生学习的改善。学习模块将具有与几乎所有社会学和社会科学研究课程相关的一般社会科学背景。我们计划将这些模块商业化。

This project proposes the development of approximately ten computer programs utilizing new features of multi-media, interactive, instructional design. The programs will reinforce the conceptual learning of the basic elements of quantitative/statistical reasoning in the social sciences: critical thinking skills, probability, conceptual modeling and hypotheses construction, statistical modeling, sampling, and inference. Instructional design techniques are used to improve student learning: interactive feedback, learner control, active learning, conceptual mapping, and performance tracking. The modules will be written using AUTHORWARE, an application development tool that creates programs executable as both resident software and over an INTRANET using AUTHORWARE's browser plug-in, SHOCKWAVE. The development of these applications addresses a major problem encountered in teaching quantitative statistical reasoning - how to improve students' understanding of basic concepts used in statistical reasoning, the linkage between concepts, and their role in solving real world problems, especially among students under educated in mathematics. The modules will be used in a course sited in a laboratory known as the Sociology Quantitative Research Laboratory, which was equipped with the aid of an NSF ILI grant. These modules will add the "conceptual learning" tools to existing "computational learning" lab tools. An experimental design using students in an introductory methods course will evaluate the improvement in student learning. The learning modules will have a general social science context relevant for nearly all sociology and social science research courses. We plan to distribute the modules commercially.