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Spencer, K. (1990) HyperHeart: does animated illustration contribute to mastery learning? British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 21 (3), pp. 227-228 HYPERHEART: TEACHING TECHNOLOGY FOR SUCCESSFUL LEARNING Having been disappointed with the no significant difference performance of educational media innovations for more than 20 years, I am fortunate to have found that, looking from a slightly different perspective, there are now some fairly convincing meta-analysis studies which show that certain approaches to teaching really do offer benefits substantial enough to be considered educationally significant. Two areas showing consistently superior effects are mastery learning methods and the use of pictorial illustrations in instructional media. Effect Size (ES) is generally estimated as the average test score difference between treatment and control groups divided by the standard deviation of the control group and gives an indication of when differences are educationally significant. An ES of 1.0 means that the innovatory method or medium increases the performance of the group by an amount equal to one standard deviation unit of traditional method; this is a large effect and is educationally significant. An ES of 0.2 is a small or trivial effect. Research reviews show a tendency for mastery methods (eg Learning For Mastery or Personalised System of Instruction) to out-perform traditional approaches, with average ESs ranging from 0.5 to 0.8, with 35% less variation in the performance of the mastery group, and a retention ES of 0.7. Illustrations which aid text or verbal explanations also shows improvements in students' achievement with average ESs ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 in favour of illustrations whose function was representational, organizational or interpretational. They are less beneficial when purely verbal tests are used (terminology ES=0.28; comprehension ES=0.09). Given the above results, I have looked for a medium which can present information in text and graphical form and which can assess student performance and provide remedial information to enable the average student to reach levels of performance more usually associated with the top 20%. Conventional media fail to do this, being essentially passive and non-inter-active, but I think I have found it in the form of HyperCard, which runs on the Apple Macintosh range of computers. It brings to fruition the enabling technology concept, which suggests that very powerful technology should be placed at the disposal of users to make difficult jobs easier. This is not a new concept in most walks of life, but it represents a new approach in the world of desktop computers! The card is the basic unit in HyperCard and several cards are put together to form a stack. The card has several components: background and foreground layers, text fields, graphic tools and buttons. Cards within a stack are controlled by the HyperTalk scripting language, 1 Spencer, K. (1990) HyperHeart: does animated illustration contribute to mastery learning? British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 21 (3), pp. 227-228 which really turns the programme into a useful educational tool. Each of the features of HyperCard can play a dynamic role in the way a user moves through the set of cards when a script, written in HyperTalk, is associated with it. The HyperTalk language has a syntax which is very similar to that of English. HyperHeart The HyperHeart programme is an attempt to provide instruction in the structure and functioning of the heart for 14-16 year olds based on the programme which has been used by Frank Dwyer for many years. There are several versions: text only; text plus simple line drawings; text plus simple line drawings, with animation sequences. The text only version has been shown by Dwyer to be inferior to the simple line illustrations, particularly when the test incorporates illustrations. The version with animation sequences was produced to assess the value of moving pictures to explain complex, dynamic situations. The previous research in this area has tended to show that only small gains are likely to accrue from the addition of motion sequences. This has considerable implications for the new inter-active technologies. Each of these versions can be of two types: mastery and non-mastery. With the non-mastery type of programme subjects pass through the structure of the heart material at their own pace, taking an illustrated test before continuing with the functioning of the heart and ending with two verbal tests and, finally, a drawing test. The mastery programmes test the subject after the structure of the heart section and have a 95% criterion level. Each test item diagnoses the probable reason for an incorrect answer and provides correctives. For example, left-right, vein-artery and auricle-ventricle confusions are identified and corrected; several confusions may be identified and each corrected within one response eg left-right/auricle-ventricle. Test results and completion times are conveniently stored in a log file for each student. Research has shown that lowering of the criterion level for mastery to 80% (from 95-100%) results in a halving of the observed ES. Initial trials with the high criterion level in this programme (95%) have been very encouraging. When the programme was introduced in schools the teachers felt that such a criterion would deter most students and that they would simply abandon the programme. This has not been the case. Even students of low ability have persevered and mastered the material, gaining a positive self-image in the process, much to the surprise of their teachers. The only mastery condition students who have abandoned their work were a minority of those assigned to the text-only condition. These students found too great a discrepancy between the teaching programme and the demands of the illustrated test items. Certainly, the power of illustrations to aid in understanding and their importance in maintaining perseverance has been amply demonstrated in the preliminary experimental 2 Spencer, K. (1990) HyperHeart: does animated illustration contribute to mastery learning? British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 21 (3), pp. 227-228 studies. The additional time taken to achieve mastery has ranged from 25% to 100%, but in all cases students have felt that the extra effort has been worthwhile. The addition of animation sequences, which can be repeated as required by the student, obviously increases the time taken to complete the programme but does not appear to influence the performance as measured by the tests. This confirms the prediction based on previous research in this area, and once again raises the question of the value of motion sequences for teaching such topics. Indeed, it may be said to challenge the very concept of inter-active video: why link the computer to an expensive motion video-disc system when simpler, less expensive systems are just as efficient? The results of this study, which is in its early stages, strongly support the view that the latest generation of computers, combining text and graphic displays at an affordable price, can provide instruction that leads to excellence, provided that educational technologists designing the educational software apply the knowledge gained through the years from research and avoid the seduction of superfluous, but superficially more attractive methods of display. 3 Spencer, K. (1990) HyperHeart: does animated illustration contribute to mastery learning? British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 21 (3), pp. 227-228 The animation sequence: 4