A discussion of constructing research designs that avoid the conflict between securing internal validity at the expense of external validity. Several such designs and examples of their application are offered. (HB)

Though models of quality research in education have abounded in the past decade, educational technologists have consistently made the same mistakes in attempting to measure the effects of multimedia approaches to teaching: 1) using a treatment that is not a valid implmentation of theory; 2) inadequate observation; and 3) disguising weak findings…

The major theme is that better and more productive studies could emerge if media research would move out of its traditional either-internal- or-external validity conflict. (Author/MV)

Research on media and technology in education appears in many forms and styles. The results of this research so far has been quite disappointing, in that researchers have failed to point out the difference between research on media and research with media. Research also has tended to become highly specific, thus losing representativeness. A…

A review of computer assisted instruction research and recent meta-analytical reports suggests that all research on the learning benefits of the instructional uses of computers should be halted until there is a plausible reason to expect that computers are instrumental in learning, since all existing evidence indicates that computers do not yield…

Discussion of research problems in instructional technology emphasizes two main needs: (1) development of a prescriptive research methodology; and (2) more front end analysis that produces a distinction between instructional design research and instructional development research. Two examples of research using the prescriptive technology approach…

This critical examination of the assumption that computer-based instruction enhances student learning and performance over traditional means summarizes arguments from past and present analyses of research, examines media attributes or symbol system theories, and presents evidence that much research is susceptible to rival hypotheses. (MBR)

Computer-based instruction (CBI) studies analyzed by Kulik et al. were examined to explore the validity of competing claims about the computer's contribution to measured achievement gains. Results suggest achievement gains found in CBI studies are overestimated and are due to uncontrolled but robust instructional methods embedded in CBI…

In the first of four symposium papers, Clark reviews the research on learning from media and uses his argument that media comparison studies show no differences in learning attributable to any one medium over another to dispute recent research on computer-assisted instruction. He also takes the position that the media attribute argument (i.e.,…

The suspected sources of confounding in current meta-analytic studies of computer based instruction (CBI) are uncontrolled effects of instructional method and/or the John Henry Effect (i.e., compensatory rivalry). To determine which confounding is most plausible, a random 30% sample of the 128 studies which formed the original Kulik meta-analyses…