Date of Award
4-1-1990
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
Barton R. Herrscher
Committee Member
Anita Barrett
Committee Member
Ross E. Moreton
Keywords
Abilene intercollegiate school of nursing, analysis of variance, anova, cognitive styles, consortium, educational methods, field dependence, field independence, group embedded figures test, higher education, instructional approaches, learning differences, nursing education, nursing students, personalized system of instruction, quasi-experimental design, random assignment, stratification, teaching methods, traditional instruction
Abstract
Abilene Intercollegiate School of Nursing (AISN) is faced with the task of educating nurses who acquire their undergraduate courses from three different universities. AISN is a consortium of these three institutions of higher education. Just as these students are varied in their first years of higher education, they do not approach. learning situations in the same manner. They differ in the ways they perceive, organize, and relate experiences. It is likely that they respond differently to a particular instructional approach. Little investigation has been done at AISN to define and use specific methods to present relevant information.
The study is a quasi-experimental design with sixty-three nursing students, which is the total population of AI SN. Subjects were offered the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) of Witkin and associates (1976). Subjects were stratified on results of the GEFT scores, after which they were randomly assigned to one of two teaching methods (traditional or Personalized System of Instruction). Four null hypotheses were developed for this study: 1. There will be no significant difference in the mean scores on the topic exam for field dependent subject receiving Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) teaching method and field dependent subjects receiving traditional teaching method. 2. There will be no significant difference in the mean scores on the topic exam for field dependent subjects receiving PSI teaching method and field independent subjects receiving traditional teaching method. 3. There will be no significant difference in the mean scores on the topic exam for field dependent subjects receiving the PSI teaching method and the field independent subjects receiving the PSI method. 4. There will be no significant difference in the mean scores on the topic exam for the field dependent subjects receiving the traditional teaching method and the field independent subjects receiving the traditional teaching method.
The data were analyzed using the two-way ANOVA. Data were related back to each null hypothesis, with no significant differences apparent.