A STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TELEVISION AND NON-TELEVISION INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSE Thesis for IIM Degree of M. A. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY Anna Robinson Ganung 1962 [J LIBRARY q. Michigan Sta”, TH £815 I #1 University “AI".L‘ - ‘7 “PM 1" *- bJuL/W OF CHIC"- I _,-’t.,,' 5?; IN. N ( 3 ‘ r: nun ‘, « p. ‘ M C i, ..o L” I} t. I ‘1' f .‘IY I‘J‘on Lrin-aI«G. I-.;.CI1.L..~.:I A STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TELEVISION AND NON-TELEVISION INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSE BY Anna Robinson Ganung AN ABSTRACT OF A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation 1962 '\ Approved Agfiikwxlik (K KJ\)_9<1;JJo(\ .1 x. I i I \ ‘7 ABSTRACT A STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TELEVISION AND NON-TELEVISION INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSE By Anna Robinson Ganung The Problem The purpose of this study was to determine the relative effectiveness of television instruction and conventional. instruction at the college level for the Foundations of Physical Education course. The areas investigated were student achievement and student attitudes and opinions toward the course and the instructor. anglusigns The comparative study of scores on a subject-matter examination earned by students in the TV and an-TV sections yielded no statistically significant differences in improve— ment of scores from pre-test to post-test. We conclude, therefore, that students assigned to TV sections perform as well on tests of immediate subject-matter recall as those taught in the conventional manner. Students in the TV sections tended, in general, to rate the course content somewhat less favorably than did students in Anna Robinson Ganung an-TV sections, on the basis of response to the 40-item Course Rating scale. On the basis of subjects' overall rating of the course on a 5-point scale from least valuable to most valuable, mean ratings of TV classes were comparable to those of NOn-TV classes. No significant differences were found between the TV and Non-TV groups on specific items relating to subject motivation and interest. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that student motivation and interest in the subject-matter is very little diminished by assignment to a TV section rather than a conventional section. According to their opinion, students were as highly motivated in the TV as in the an-TV classes. Objections to TV instruction which are founded upon a presumed superiority of conventional instruction for evoking student motivation and interest seem, within the scope of this study, to be groundless. No significant differences were found between the rating of the instructors by students in TV sections and those taught in the conventional manner. no significant differences were found for rating of instructors on specific criteria of teacher effectiveness between students in TV and an-TV classes. Anna Robinson Ganung A significant difference was found between the students' rating of instructors. It is recognized that students are not necessarily the best judges of a teacher's effectiveness, and therefore that ratings by students should not be used for the purpose of making inter-instructor comparisons. However, student opinions are important, as they are in an excellent position to appraise instructor effectiveness in meeting their needs and desires. A STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TELEVISION AND NON-TELEVISION INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSE BY Anna Robinson Ganung A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation 1962 Chapter I. II. III. IV. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . Purpose of the Study . Need for the Study . . Definition of Terms . . Limitations of the Study REVIEW OF LITERATURE . . Academic Achievement. . Student Attitudes. . . Motivation and Interest. Teacher Rating. . . . METHODOLOGY . . . . . Design . . . . . . Variables. . . . . Equating . . . . . Subjects. . . . . . Evaluative Instruments . Measures of Student Achievement Measures of Student Attitudes ANALYSIS OF DATA. . . . Evaluation of Student Achievement Evaluation of Student Attitudes Comparison of Student Attitudes the Course . . . Student Motivation and Interest Course. . . . . Attitudes Toward Instructor. Effect of Instructional Procedure Upon Specific Criteria of Teaching Effectiveness . . Summary . . . . . . Conclusions. . . . . Recommendations . . . Toward in the SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Page DWI—‘H 10 14 17 19 19 19 19 21 22 22 22 24 24 26 26 29 31 32 35 35 35 37 ii Page BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 APPENDICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Appendix A. Raw Data on Achievement Tests and Attitude Scales. . . . . . . . . . 43 Appendix B. Attitude and Rating Scales . . . . 49 LIST OF TABLES Table Page I. Analysis of Variance for Achievement Scores . . 25 II. Student Responses to 40—Item Course Rating Scale 27 III. Responses to Over-All Rating of Course. . . . 28 IV. Responses on Items Relating to Motivation and Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 V. Analysis of Variance for Instructor Rating . . 32 VI. Favorable Responses on Specific Criteria of Teacher Effectiveness. . . . . . . . . 34 VII. Raw Data on Achievement Examination. . . . . 44 VIII. Raw Data on Favorable Responses to 40—Item Course Content Attitude Scale . . . . . . . . 47 IX. Raw Data on 20-Item Instructor Rating Scale . . 48 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author is grateful for the opportunity to complete this study under the direction of Dr. Janet A. Wessel. The author in indebted to Dr. Wayne Van Russ and William G. Evans for their interest and suggestions. Special appreciation is extended to Lockwood C. Marine for his invaluable technical assistance. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Television has become one of the most prominent media of mass communication in American culture. Commercial television has done more to influence American culture in the past decade than any other medium of communication. It has also had a tremendous impact on the education of American children. In recent years there has been increasingly greater utilization of television by schools and colleges for direct classroom instruction. Purpose of the Study It is the purpose of this study to determine the relative effectiveness of television instruction and con- ventional instruction at the college level for the Foundations of Physical Education course. A closely related purpose is to gain information which may aid in improvement of teaching procedures for the Foundations course. Need for the Study It is a well known fact that college enrollments are increasing rapidly and will continue to increase at an alarming rate unless curtailed either by a major war or by the imposition of severe entrance requirements. Along with this fact are two closely related conditions. First, there is every indication of a shortage of well qualified teachers in most subject areas of the curriculum. Second, it is very doubtful if the procurement of additional revenues for the operation of our institutions of higher education will keep pace with growing enrollments. Public colleges and universities almost certainly will be forced into receiving and instructing larger and larger numbers of students without corresponding increases in financial support and facilities. This condition, in the face of a growing shortage of “good“ teachers, will force the lowering of the quality of instruction unless ways can be found for increasing the ratio of students to teachers without compromising instructional standards. Television may be a partial solution to problems of quantity if data relative to achievement, motivation and interest of students indicate that quality is not diminished. Significant data exist from other studies of the effectiveness of televised instruction in many subject—matter I areas. Most of the studies conducted to date deal primarily with achievement in the subject-matter area, and there is a continuously increasing amount of data which indicate that televised instruction is as effective, and in some instances more effective than conventional instruction. No data exist of the effectiveness of televised instruction in the area of physical education in colleges and universities. With expanding enrollments in institutions of higher education, it is imperative that we find ways to teach larger groups more effectively in the subject matter area of physical education. It is hoped that this study will give some indication of the relative effectiveness of television teaching for the Foundations of Physical Education course, and that it will make some significant contributions which may aid in improvement of teaching procedures for the course. Definition of Terms Television class. A section taught by closedw circuit television. Each classroom was equipped with two viewing monitors. Each section also had a viewingwroom instructor who was a regular staff member or a senior physical education major student. Non-television class. A section taught in the conventional manner. Limitations of the Study Sample. The study is confined to 177 freshmen women at Michigan State University. Techniques and Procedures. Differences in viewing room instructors for Television classes were not considered. It is recognized that the effectiveness of the classroom instructor and her attitude toward the experimental procedure may have an influence on the achievement and attitudes of the students. Attitude questionnaires which have been used at other universities were modified for use in this study without being tested previously. Especially was this true with the Course Content rating scale which was originally set up as a Thurstone-type scale but was used in this study as a simple agree-disagree form. This is a one-term study with no provision for retention testing. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Academic Achievement A majority of the research studies which have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of television instruction have considered primarily achievement in the subject-matter area. At Pennsylvania State University, studies have been conducted on the relative achievement of students in television and non-television classes in General Psychology, Chemistry, Elementary Business Law, Introductory Sociology, Elementary Meteorology, and Music Appreciation. Carpenter and Greenhill1 report that there were no statistically significant differences between test scores of television and the non-television groups for each course. Since no significant differences were found, the general conclusion drawn from these experiments was that the students who were l C. R. Carpenter and L. P. Greenhill, An Investigation of Closed Circuit Television for Teaching University Courses. Instructional Television Research Report Number Two. University Park Pa.: The Division of Academic Research and Services, Pennsylvania State University. Spring, 1958. taught for a full semester over television learned as much as those who were taught conventionally. With the intent of gaining accurate information on the effectiveness of both large and small group instruction and of different teaching procedures and course organiza— tions (including TV), an extensive four year study was conducted at Miami University.2 Studies of subject-matter achievement as a function of section assignment involved comparisons of the scores earned on the objective portions of the final examinations by equated groups of students attending experimental and control sections. It was apparent that, with few exceptions, large group instruction (including TV) was as effective as was small group (conventional) instruction. Achievement defined as the ability to solve problems and to synthesize information was investigated in a number of large (including TV) classes and equated control sections. The results support the general conclusion that the experimental procedures did not lead to reduced proficiency in these areas. The National Program in the Use of Television in the Public Schools began a nationwide experiment on use of 2 F. Glenn Macomber and Laurence Siegel. Final Report of the Experimental Study in Instructional Procedures. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, January, 1960. television for classroom instruction in 1957-58 with nearly 40,000 students in more than 200 elementary and secondary schools. The Program entered its fourth year in 1960—61 with close to 200,000 students in nearly 800 schools in fifteen municipal areas and eight regions participating in the Program.3 There was wide variation among the different school systems in the kind and quality of tests used and in the statistical treatment of the test results. However, results based on comparisons in which the television and control students had been equated on the basis of scholastic aptitude and pre-test score, or in which differences between television and control groups had been taken into account in such a way that legitimate comparisons could be made, show that of 251 comparisons during the first two years of the study, l65 comparisons favored the TV students and eighty-six favored the control students. There were ninety cases where the difference in achievement was statistically significant; in sixty-nine of these the difference was in favor of the TV classes, and in twenty-one it was in favor of the control classes. 3TeachingbyTelevision. A Report from the Ford Foundation and the Fund for the Advancement of Education. New York: Ford Foundation. 1961. The largest single experiment in the use of class- room television in a school district was launched in the fall of 1956 in Hagerstown, Maryland, county seat of Washing- ton County. Preliminary comparisons favor the television students in several of the subjects considered.4 In 1960, thirty-six of the fifty Washington County schools, with a total enrollment of 16,500 students, were receiving instruction by closed circuit television.5 Many differences favoring TV students have appeared in studies at the elementary and secondary school levels. Kumata6 states, however, that it should be pointed out that in these studies, TV did not carry the entire load in the class but was used as an augmentation to regular classroom instruction. Most of the studies report no significant differences when information gain is compared between students taught by television and students taught under face-to-face conditions. 4Washington County Closed Circuit Educational Television ProjectI Progress Repgrt. Hagerstown, Maryland: Board of Education, 1959. 5Teaching by Television. 9p. cit. 6Hideya Kumata, "A Decade of Teaching by Television," The Impact of Educational Television. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 1960. (edited by Wilbur Schram) Holmes7 reports that of 281 comparisons concerning informa- tion gain and achievement, the overwhelming majority, 246, indicate no substantial difference in the amount of information gain due to variations in Communication conditions. Because of the implications for the field of physical education, studies of acquisition of psychomotor skills are of particular interest here. Kanner, e3, gl.,8 in two performance tests of map reading and machine gun operation, found that trainees under TV conditions did significantly better than those in the lecture type class. 9 reports that, in a study conducted to Pasewark determine the effectiveness of televised instruction for beginning typewriting, television students typed significantly faster than conventional students on the timed test at the Presley D. Holmes, Jr., Television Research in the TeachingeLearning Process, Wayne State University Division of Broadcasting, Detroit, Michigan. July 1, 1959. 8Joseph H. Kanner, Richard P. Runyon, and Otello Desiderato, Television in Army Training: Evaluation of Televisionfiin Army Basic Training, Technical Report 14. Wash— ington D. C.: Human Resources Research Office, The George Washington University, November, 1954. 9W. R. Pasewark, Teaching Typewriting Through Television. Research Report Number 1?, Bureau of Business and Public Service. Michigan State University, October, 1956. 10 conclusion of the course. They also typed with less mean errors, but this difference was not statistically significant. Throop, pp. gl.,10 found that students under convention- al conditions did better than those taught by television with audio feed back, in the operation of machinery. However, students in the television classes had less access to the machinery. According to Holmes,ll the results indicate that television students develop psychomotor skills as well as conventionally taught students. Student Attitudes Surveying student opinions and attitudes toward televised instruction has become a widespread standard procedure wherever TV projects are conducted. Such surveys have value as a general assessment of the acceptance of the procedures by students, as a means of permitting students to participate in the evaluation of TV, and as 10Joseph F. Throop, Lewis T. Assini, and George W. Boguslavsky, The Effectiveness of Laboratory Instruction in Strength of Materials by Closed-Cipcpit Television. Troy, New York: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, November 8, 1958. ll Holmes, pp, cit., p. 64. 11 a way of collecting suggestions about improving TV opera- tions and televised courses. It is possible that even though no differences of significance were found in learning, nevertheless student attitudes and opinions may weigh for or against the use of instructional television. Strongly unfavorable student attitudes, if present, would represent a serious public relations problem apart from any carry-over from attitudes to achievement. 2 report that a majority of Carpenter and Greenhilll students exposed to TV indicated they thought they were learning "about the same“ or a "little less" by television. The lowest final ratings were given by the students in General Chemistry who had had the first semester of lecture demonstrations of this course in the conventional, large class situation and, therefore, probably had a reasonable basis for making the rating. Almost half of the students in chemistry believed that they were learning somewhat less by television. One factor which should be considered is that in this particular course, students indicated that lack of 2Carpenter and Greenhill, gp. cit. 12 color was a distinct disadvantage. It should also be pointed out that because of the nature of the measures, there was no provision in this study for comparable measure of the students pp; in television sections. Therefore it is not known to what extent course content or the instructors influenced the ratings. Macomber and Siegel13 state that students in the TV sections tended, in general, to rate the course content somewhat less favorably than did students in the control sections of the same courses. Ten of the twelve comparisons supported a trend of more favorable attitudes toward the course in the control than in the TV sections. Three of these ten comparisons produced mean differences that were statistically significant. One course, however, produced data contrary to the usual trend. Two of the comparisons made in this course favored TV over conventional instruction. Holmesl4 states that every study which has sampled student opinion of the Communication conditions found that, when given a choice between "television" and "conventional" conditions, the majority of students show an acceptance of 13Macomber and Siegel, gp. cit. 14Holmes, gp. cit. 13 television, but a preference for conventional. However, Carpenter and Greenhill15 point out that responses to questionnaires may not be accurate indicators of real choice behavior. Analysis of the responses of those who had received presentations under television conditions indicates a greater shift in the positive direction. That is, students' opinion is higher after exposure than it was before exposure to television conditions, and generally higher than those who had not been exposed at all. Evans.16 Tannenbaum,l7 18 and Carpenter and Greenhill all reported results of more favorable opinion of students after exposure to television conditions. 1 Macomber. 2;. al., 9 found that most students reported 15 Carpenter and Greenhill, 9p. cit. 6 Richard I. Evans, "An Examination of Students' Attitudes Toward Television as a Medium of Instruction in a Psychology Course," Journal of Applied Psychology. XL, 1956, p. 32-34. 17Percy H. Tannenbaum, Instruction Through Television: An Experimental Study. Urbana, Illinois: Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois, 1956. 18Carpenter and Greenhill, pp. cit. 19F. G. Macomber, Laurence Siegel, Stephen C. Hathaway, John E. Dome, Experimental Study in Instructional Procedures. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, October 1, 1957. 14 that they neither learned as much nor were as attentive during the TV presentation as they had originally anticipated. Furthermore, more students were inclined to favor conventional instruction over TV instruction at the end of the second semester than at the end of the first semester. Wessel20 reports that student attitudes toward TV classes in comparison with conventional classes were favor- able in two physical education courses, i.e., Foundations of Physical Education and Social Dance. Motivation andylntegest One of the frequently voiced objections to television teaching procedures is based on the belief that students in TV sections cannot be as well motivated as students in conventional classes. It is often felt that TV instruction, because of the lack of personal contact between student and instructor, diminishes student interest and inhibits the ability of the instructor to arouse a desire in the student for further contact with the subject—matter. The literature does not support this view. 20Janet A. Wessel, Report of the Expepimental Procedures in Closed Circuit Television fo£_Teaching Uniyegsity Coursesygp Physicalyggucation. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan,June, 1962, (Mimeographed) 15 Carpenter and Greenhill21 found no consistent trend with respect to rating of the interest of the course relative to conventional instruction. Macomber and Siegel22 found that according to their own opinion students were as highly motivated in the TV as in the conventional conditions and that "Objections to the experiment- al procedures which are founded upon a presumed superiority of conventional instruction for evoking student motivation and interest seem, within the scope of this investigation, to be groundless."23 Teacher Rating It is recognized that students are not necessarily the best judges of a teacher's effectiveness, and therefore that ratings by students should not be used for the purpose of making inter-instructor comparisons. Students do, however, observe their instructors closely and are in an excellent position to appraise instructor effectiveness in 21C. R. Carpenter and L. P. Greenhill, An Investigation pf Closed ggrcuit Television_f9r Teaching University Courses. Instructional Television Research Project Number One. Univer— sity Park, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, July 31, 1955. 22Macomber and Siegel, pp. cit. 23Ibid., p. 29. 16 meeting their needs and desires. Thus any differences that might exist between ratings assigned to the same instructor by his students in the TV and conventional sections would be of considerable consequence. Carpenter and Greenhill24 found that, on the basis of the measures used for rejection and acceptance, a teacher was judged to have the same attitude toward students whether he was teaching directly or over television. When students were asked to rate their instructor compared with others they had in different courses, there were some slight differences in responses between students in TV and direct instruction groups. A slightly higher percentage of students in the direct instruction sections gave ratings of average than did students in the TV sections. The latter group tended to give more ratings at the extreme ends of the scale, resulting in a slightly higher percentage of ratings for both "better than average" and "poorer than average" by students in the TV sections. Macomber and Siegel25 report data supportive of greater instructor effectiveness, as far as students are 24Carpenter and Greenhill (Research Report No. Two) 5Macomber and Siegel, pp. cit. 17 concerned, in conventional than in TV sections. The experimental procedure tended to reduce the instructor's effectiveness, as far as student opinions were concerned. This perceived reduction in teaching effectiveness was not, it should be remembered, paralleled by a corresponding decrement in the performance of students in the TV sections on the various measures of achievement. On specific criteria of teaching effectiveness, Macomber and Siegel26 report that the students tended to feel that their instructors did a better job of providing individual stimulation and maintaining a high level of interest when they taught conventional sections than when they taught TV sections. Summary A major portion of the research which has been conducted regarding the effectiveness of television instruction has been concerned with information gain. The result of an overwhelming majority of studies on subject-matter tests is that no significant difference has been found in comparisons of television students with conventionally taught students. Surveys of student attitudes have indicated that a majority of students were neutral or mildly negative in their 18 reaction toward televised instruction. However, there is no indication that interest and motivation were decreased as a result of receiving instruction through the medium of television. Students tended to rate effectiveness of instructors about the same or somewhat less in television classes as compared with conventional instructional procedures. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY Design This study was conducted with a single variable experimental pattern. The experimental group consisted of three sections of the Foundations of Physical Education course taught by closed circuit television. The control group consisted of three sections conducted in the conventional manner. Variaples. The primary independent variable was presentational technique--television instruction vs. conventional classroom procedures. The dependent variables