The Effects of Continuous Progress Instruction in a College Religion Course

Autor: Moore J. William, Ellen D. Gagne, William E. Hauck
Rok vydání: 1975
Předmět:
Zdroj: The Journal of Experimental Education. 44:9-12
ISSN: 1940-0683
0022-0973
DOI: 10.1080/00220973.1975.11011517
Popis: While a previous study has shown that requiring a criterion of mastery in a hierarchically related discipline, i. e., Physics, leads to improved transfer (as well as improved acquisition and retention), it is not known whether a greater knowledge of prerequisites in a less hierarchically related discipline, i. e., Religion, leads to improved transfer. The findings reported here which show no dif ferences for transfer as a function of instructional procedure in Religion lead to the conclusion that the learning of prerequisites may have more significant effects on transfer only in the more hierarchically related disciplines. The findings for requiring mastery in a Religion course indicate that acquisition is facilitated in this discipline when the objectives of the course include either analysis and interpretation or factual recall. WHILE INSTRUCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT and evaluation has proliferated at the pre-college level (e. g., SMSG Math, SRA Science, Criterion Reading), less has been done to develop and evaluate instructional systems at the college level. One attempt that has been made at the college level, developed as part of a larger total system of institutional improvement (4), is called the "Continuous Progress Plan." The Continuous Progress concept is derived from two basic psychological considerations: (a) that there are individual differences in learning rate, and (b) that an increase in the probability of an undesirable response occurs when the receipt of a desired reinforcer is made contingent on the occurrence of an undesirable response. In Continuous Progress courses provision is made for individual differences This content downloaded from 40.77.167.7 on Sat, 16 Jul 2016 05:58:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 10 JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION in learning rate by allowing students to decide, within certain limits, when they will be evaluated. In addition, de sirable progress and ultimate success in a course are en sured by making them contingent on reaching criterion levels of mastery in succeeding units of material. Previous controlled experiments conducted to evaluate the Continuous Progress concept of instruction have found greater acquisition and more positive attitudes for Con tinuous Progress students than for traditionally taught stu dents in Psychology, Philosophy, and Biology courses (3) and in a Physics course (5). One purpose of the present study was to extend these findings to another discipline, Religion. It has been shown for Physics that there is greater transfer to a later Physics course and greater retention one year after original learning as a function of Continuous Progress instruction taught students in Physics (5). A question which is raised by the finding of greater transfer for Continuous Progress students is whether transfer for Continuous Progress would occur in a discipline less hier archically related than Physics, i. e., Religion. While it would be expected from a theory of hierarchically related knowledge structures (2) that greater original learning in prerequisite courses facilitates transfer in later related courses (e. g., Physics), this should not be the case in less hierarchically related disciplines such as Religion. A final question posed by this study involved the types of educational objectives that can be more efficiently at tained using Continuous Progress procedures. In previous studies, objective questions emphasizing either recall (Biology, Psychology, Philosophy) or problem solving (Physics) were employed. Can students also achieve analysis and interpretation objectives (measured through essay items) more easily in a Continuous Progress course? The second year of the Religion experiment reported here addressed itself to this question.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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