Research Program on Cognitive Abilities and Learning

Accommodating instruction to student characteristics: Trends and issues.

“…Only a few such methodologically sound interactions have been found to be of practical , educational utility (B2rliner & Cahen , 1973;Boutwell & Barton , 1974;Bracht , 1970;Bunderson & Dunham , 1970;Cronbach & Snow, 1969;Glaser , 1972; Sa lomo n , 1972). Not only do useful disordinal interac t ions occur infrequently, but they also are usually too sensitive to slight alterations in the teaching treatment , the subject matter , or the st udent population.…”

“…It may be better to modify the beat existing instructional treatment than to adapt multip le teachiug strategies based upon uncertain All research. Bunderson and Dunham (1970) said tha t , instead of attempting to establ ish significant disordinal interactions as the basis for assigning alternative macro teaching treatments , the useful results from ATI research should be employed to establish the best instructional program for lowaptitude personnel. Micro instructional treatmenta could then be used adaptively in such a program .…”

Pretask versus within-task anxiety measures in predicting performance on a concept acquisition task.

“…However, portions of a learning program may be adjusted once a student starts performing a task. Results of the regression analyses do imply that Bunderson and Dunham's (1970) model of microtreatments using adaptive approaches is a vital alternative to the macromethod. Thus, Cronbach's (1967) thesis of differing environments according to individual characteristics is based on concurrent state measures.…”

“…The studies indicated that aptitude treatment interac-tions have an elusive nature. Bunderson and Dunham's (1970) final report of a 3ycar research project on cognitive abilities and learning challenged the aptitude treatment interactions concept as a viable predictive procedure in "real world" instructional contexts. Reasons for their skepticism can be summarized as follows: (a) useful disordinal interactions are rare; (b) disordinal interactions are not sufficiently robust under minor changes in the task or population; and (c) the benefits from disordinal interactions may be less than those attainable through revision of a single optimal treatment.…”