The use of a computer tutorial as a replacement for human tuition in a mastery learning strategy

Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a traditional activity in tertiary education. Few available CAL programs exhibit user friendliness and most are complex simulation or modelling programs not primarily designed as instructional programs. Authoring languages are designed to enable teachers to write instructional programs without the need to learn computer languages. This investigation reports upon the use of a tutorial program written in the authoring language “STAF2” to replace human tuition as part of a mastery learning experience in undergraduate biology. A similar mastery learning experience, taught identically to both student groups served as a control. All learning was assessed cognitively in terms of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and the results compared between the human-taught and STAF2-taught groups. All learning experiences resulted in the majority of students attaining mastery. The students taught by the STAF2 computer program attained significantly higher scores for retention of knowledge, its application and evaluation when compared with those taught by a human teacher. Whilst there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of comprehension, analysis and synthesis, the mean scores and the percentage of students attaining mastery after computer tuition was higher than the human taught group. The implications of these results are discussed.