WHAT IS COMPUTER-AIDED INSTRUCTION?



    Computer-aided instruction is defined in this project to mean

    

the use of computers to aid teachers and students in the



educational process.  It utilizes such functions as presenting



problems, guiding a student's thinking by asking questions, and



evaluating performance.  It may be thought of as a form of human-



machine interaction whose goal is the efficient learning of



a desired curriculum(9).  In this project, the curriculum is



elementary statistics.





   The CAI designer or instructional programmer will find that



there are several decisions which must be made when preparing



course material for the computer. These include:



    1.  Selection of the appropriate media device for the

        presentation of the curriculum

        

    2.  Control of the sequence of elements within the curriculum

    

    3.  Control of the rate of the presentation

    

    4.  Concurrent recording of the learning behaviors

    

    5.  Inclusion of decision mechanisms that determine the rate

    

and sequence by which curriculum elements are presented to 

       

each student(10).





    There are two general approaches the instructional programmer

               

may take in CAI.  The first is the machine-directed approach in



which the various alternatives and paths through an instructional



area are programmed into the machine.  In this approach, there



must be a predetermined model of the needs of the student and



existing methods by which the computer can evaluate the student's



current state of knowledge.  In addition, the machine must



maintain a record of the student's past performance and have at



its disposal techniques for prescribing a future path for each



student which would optimize the learning process.