Multiple-choice assessments provide a straightforward way for instructors of large classes to collect data related to student understanding of key concepts at the beginning and end of a course. By tracking student performance over time, instructors receive formative feedback about their teaching and can assess the impact of instructional changes. The evidence of instructional effectiveness can ...

The field of instructional technology has traditionally involved a unique blend of theory and practice. This blend is most obvious in developmental research, those studies that involve the production of knowledge with the ultimate aim of improving the processes of instructional design, development, and evaluation. Such research is based on either situation-specific problem solving or generalize...

Faculty members in higher education are involved in many instructional design activities without formal training in learning theories and the science of instruction. Learning theories provide the foundation for the selection of instructional strategies and allow for reliable prediction of their effectiveness. To achieve effective learning outcomes, the science of instruction and instructional d...

Learning from worked-out examples is very effective for initial skill acquisition, at least when learners actively explain the solution steps in the examples to themselves. However, learning solely on the basis of self-explanations is connected with several restrictions, even when effective self-explaining is trained or elicited. Therefore, a coherent set of principles for integrating instructi...

this study investigated the effectiveness of individual and collaborative outputbasedfocus-on-form instructional tasks on the acquisition of english inversionstructures by efl learners. moreover, it explored the developmental trend oflearners’ inversion acquisition. to this end, 60 homogeneous efl learners wereassigned to individual and collaborative output groups. they were exposed to textsenc...

Cognitive load theory is an instructional theory that uses our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, especially processing limitations of working memory, to enhance effectiveness of instructional design. This paper reviews main assumptions and principles of cognitive load theory and discusses their application to technology-based learning environments. The paper concludes with a brief intr...

Learning effectiveness is a function of effective pedagogical practices. Accordingly, the question for learning technology designers should be “What combination of instructional strategies and delivery media will best produce the desired learning outcome for the intended audience?" This paper reviews four successful products that incorporate solid instructional strategies with agent based game ...

When new information is presented to learners, it must be processed in a severely limited working memory. Learning reduces working memory limitations by enabling the use of schemas, stored in long-term memory, to process information more efficiently. Several instructional techniques have been designed to facilitate schema construction and automation by reducing working memory load. Recently, ho...

As an instructional tool, graphic organizers (GOs) have been highly recommended and used in contemporary classrooms. Over the past decade, a number of concerns have been raised about claims for the effectiveness of GOs. These concerns involve the inconsistent research results on student improvements, the limitation in generalizability from research studies, and the need for research studies wit...