Ann Igoe

Perspectives on the future of educational technology

This study was conducted to determine the opinions of a broad-based sample of educational technology professionals and students about the future of our field. A nationwide sample of 268 university personnel (faculty members, doctoral students, and masters students) and trainers completed a Likert-type survey that contained 30 items covering six topic areas: Educational Technology and Learning Theory, Instructional Design Models, Technology and Individualized Instruction, Advances in Technology, Educational Technology and Schools, and Employment and Job Opportunities. The overall results reveal that educational technologists have a positive outlook toward the future of our field. Opinions were most positive in the areas of Educational Technology and Learning Theory, Employment and Job Opportunities, and Technology and Individualized Instruction, and were least positive in the area of Advances in Technology. There were numerous significant differences of opinion on individual items across the four respondent groups, with the greatest number of differences occurring between faculty members and masters students.

Self-Presentation Bias and Continuing Motivation among Chinese Students: A Cross-Cultural Phenomenon.

Abstract Self-presentation bias and continuing motivation for difficult and easy tasks among Grade 7 and 11 students in the Peoples Republic of China were investigated. Participants were 517 students from two schools in Wuhan, China. They read short scenarios in which male or female characters performed tasks that they considered to be hard or easy. The students then answered a question for each scenario about whether the scenario character would do a second task of the same type and a question about whether they themselves would do the second task. They reported higher return-to-task rates for easy tasks than for hard ones, thus revealing stronger continuing motivation for easy tasks. Self-presentation bias was indicated by a significant interaction in which students reported a higher return rate to difficult tasks for themselves than for the scenario character, and a lower return rate to easy tasks for themselves than for the scenario character. The results reveal patterns of self-presentation bias and...

Self-Presentation Bias and Continuing Motivation among Adolescents.

Abstract This study investigated the reported return-to-task rates of girls and boys for a target individual and for themselves on hard and easy tasks. The return-to-task measure consisted of scenarios in which a male or female character performed a task that the character considered to be either hard or easy. Data were collected from 632 students in Grades 7, 9, and 11 at a junior and a senior high school in a large southwestern suburban school district. The return rates to hard and easy tasks for the subject and for the scenario character were compared for indications of self-presentation bias. The data revealed that both girls and boys preferred easy tasks over hard tasks and that girls had significantly higher (p < .01) return-to-task rates than boys did. Evidence of seif-presentation bias is present in an interaction in which subjects reported a significantly higher (p < .0001) rate of return to difficult tasks for themselves than for the scenario character, and a significantly lower return rate to e...

An analysis of intuitive and model-directed media-selection decisions

Media-selection decisions of 30 instructional development graduate students were studied under intuitive and model-directed decision-making conditions. Students were given three media-selection problems and were directed to select an appropriate medium for each problem and to write a rationale for the medium selected. The students used thier intuitions to select media for the first problem. They used a formal media selection process to select media for the other two problems. Results indicated that the proportion of students who made correct media selections when they used their intuition was not significantly different from the proportion who made correct selections the first time they used the formal selection process. The proportion of students who made correct selections the second time they used the formal process was significantly greater than the proportion who made correct selection decisions when using their intuition and when using the formal selection process the first time. Subsequent analysis, however, indicated that there was no correlation between the correct use of the formal selection process and making correct media-selection decisions. Implications for the design and use of formal media selection processes in instructional development are described.