Abstract
A recent educational project in Liberia provided the opportunity to test the claim that programmed teaching and programmed instructional materials could improve student achievement over more conventional approaches and at the same time minimize gender-related achievement differences. The study examined gender differences in English and mathematics achievement in grades 1, 2 and 3 across three instructional approaches used in Liberia. The results of the analyses indicate that (1) on the average across the three grades, students in the programmed teaching approach significantly outperformed students in both comparison groups on both the mathematics and English achiievement tests, (2) boys generally outperformed girls in both mathematics and English, and (3) the greatest gender differences in achievement occurred among students in the programmed teaching approach.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 99-105 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | International Journal of Educational Development |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1987 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:A recent educational project in Liberia provided an opportunity to test the claim that programmed teaching and programmed instructional materials could improve student achievemento ver more conventional instructional approaches and at the same time minimize gender-related achievement differences. The Improved Efficiency of Learning (IEL) project funded by United StatesA gency for International development (USAID) developed and employed a combination of programmedt eaching( grades1 -3) and instructional materials (grades 4-6). Both were designedt o instructp rimary school studentsi n five areas: reading, English, mathematics, science and social studies. The selection of content for instruction was based on the Liberian national curriculum. The project cost in excess of ten million dollars and spanned five years. During this time, materials were piloted in five schools and subsequentlyw ere implementedi n ten additional schoolsi n 1984. A fuller descriptiono f the IEL project and the design of the instructional treatment is provided by Kelly (1984a, b) and Harrison and Morgan (1982).
