Background to the project
The main aims of the Evaluation Study were:
The project was conducted in two phases, each included in the evaluation. The Pilot phase (Sept 1992 - July 1993) involved 16 primary schools, 1 middle school, and 18 secondary schools, in nine LEAs. These schools are referred to as the 'Core' schools. Two of the secondary schools were Grant Maintained. Each school received 1, 2 or 3 workstations, plus the World of Number primary or secondary discs, plus 4 or 5 additional discs relevant to other areas of the National Curriculum. Some schools also received CD-I and CDTV systems, so that comparisons could be made across the interactive media.
In the Extension phase, from September 1993 to March 1994, 208 schools (2 from each LEA) were involved. These schools are referred to as the 'Extension' schools. Each one received a workstation, together with the World of Number discs.
The project was managed by the National Council for Educational Technology (NCET), and the evaluation study was carried out by the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University.
The aims of the evaluation study were supplemented by a number of objectives to focus the findings around the issues of interest to teachers and LEAs:
The findings reported are grouped according to these objectives and include further issues emerging from the study:
The study combines qualitative and quantitative methods of evaluation to investigate the impact of interactive video and associated technologies on learning processes.
Qualitative data was collected from over 100 teacher interviews, and a similar number of observation studies, and over 80 reports on schools; quantitative data was taken from questionnaires sent out at the end of each term of the project, giving 184 respon dents from the Core schools and nearly 300 from the Extension schools altogether. These figures represent at worst a 50% return on some questionnaires, to at best a 90% return from the participating schools.
