ABSTRACT
Presently, the majority of commercially available instructional microcomputer courseware is in the drill-and-practice mode (Cohen, 1983). The combination of tutorial and drill-and-practice represents as much as 85% of all commercially available courseware. The paradigmatic design of this courseware borrows heavily from alternative forms of programmed learning. In drill-and-practice courseware, information or problems, usually though not always in prose form, are presented on the screen, followed immediately by recall or recognition questions about the information. This form of instruction is primarily presentational because the interaction does not result in meaningful learning, but rather only in rote recall of information presented. The sequence of the presentation is usually linear like linear programmed instruction. Instruction proceeds sequentially from one frame to another requiring only minimal attention-level responding— "Press SPACE BAR to Continue" or immediate recall of information from the previous screen.
