The relationship between learner modality preference and achievement

Abstract

This research attempted to discover any consistent relationship between presentation mode and achievement as defined by the figural, semantic, and symbolic modalities of the Content area of Guilford's Structure of Intellect Model. Additionally, it sought to discover any interaction between modality of presentation and response modality. The study also attempted to analyze interaction between modality preference and race, sex, IQ, and socioeconomic status as related to achievement. Over a four day period 206 students participated in the experiment which employed three video-taped lessons, one in each of the three modalities (figural, semantic, and symbolic) of Guilford's Content area. On the first day, all student were pretested, and on the three succeeding days all were exposed to each of the three lessons. Immediately following each lesson, subjects were presented with posttests over the lesson content. Students chose the posttest they preferred from the three tests offered (one test in each of the three modalities). In the statistical procedures, five hypotheses were investigated. The first three hypotheses were to rule out rival explanations of the findings. The first, subjected to an analysis of variance, discounted any influence of question order upon findings. Probabilities for each of the three lessons were Transversals, p= 0.5041; Congruent Triangles, p=0.9250; and for the Pythagorean Theorem, p= 0.7744. The second examined the influence of treatment order upon achievement by means of an analysis of variance. The between orders analysis showed an F-ratio of 0.400 with a probability of 0.6760, indicating that treatment order had no significant effect upon achievement. The third tested the three lessons for equivalence of difficulty, comparing mean achievement scores by t-test. The small t-values demonstrated that there was no significant difference in achievement by treatment..