IEMCI

Courses based on the Keller method (also named Personalized System of Instruction - PSI) present several interesting features and results, such as final grade distributions which are upside down (the majority of students achieving the highest grades) and a workload for the elaboration and implementation considerably greater than that involved in traditional courses. In the present paper, we propose a mathematical model to describe the scheme of a course implemented according to the Keller plan. This model predicts the time evolution of the distribution of students per unit of content, predicts the upside down effect in the final grades and establishes conditions under which this effect can be observed. The model also provides a quantification of the workload spent in implementing assessments, so it can be an useful tool for those planning or interested in further investigations on Keller courses

Pearson & Sahraie (2003) showed that saccades have a greater impact on the retention of spatial information than the smooth gaze displacement done when one tracks an object moving on a screen. However, he did not show how progressively increasing the gaze angular displacement affects the retention of spatial information. The present study investigates what happens with the retention of spatial information in the following situations: when the gaze angular displacement is ∆Ө, when it is 2∆Ө and when it is 3∆Ө. For each of these situations the time interval will be kept the same so that time can be ruled out as a factor. We will use the performance in the Corsi Blocks Task as a measure of the retention of spatial information. We predict that, as the gaze angular displacement increases, the retention of spatial information decreases. We discuss the implications of this gaze displacement effect on learning under a split attention situation. The Split Attention Effect has been explained as being caused by the cognitive load generated by the search for referents among the sources of information. The distance between referents has not been considered a factor except when reducing the distance also reduces the amount of search. However, if our conjecture that increasing the gaze angular displacement reduces the retention of spatial information is confirmed experimentally then, the existence of this gaze displacement effect should indicate that distance is in itself a factor in the Split Attention Effect.

International Cognitive Load Theory Conference, Fort Collins; 06/2015