In fall 1980, a self-paced, individualized, mastery learning approach was adopted at Hibbing Community College for four chemistry courses in order to increase student performance and success and to provide scheduling flexibility for adult students with outside commitments. While both the traditional approach used prior to fall 1980 and the new…

This paper describes the Loyola Center for Educational Improvement's (LCEI) effort to develop a clearinghouse on mastery learning (CML) which would serve as a depository for conceptual and research documents on mastery learning, competency-based education, instructional design, and other related topics. The nature of the clearinghouse is defined…

A college that uses students as tutors in a reading/study skills lab originally did its training through individual assistance. Tutors were encouraged to complete at least one lesson from each of the textbooks, kits, and programs. A few workshops were held to give an overview of equipment, materials, and strategies. Increased enrollment in the lab…

Three papers are presented in this monograph. The first--Trends in Process-Related Research on Curriculum and Teaching at Different Problem Levels in Educational Sciences--provides a re-analysis of research about the influences of certain environmental factors on student achievement. In the second paper--Frame Factors and Teaching for Mastery--the…

Two experiments used two 2 x 3 x 2 (instructors x test forms x class times) designs to compare three aspects of student performance (mean final examination scores, homogeneity of variance, and retake frequencies) on three test forms. The test items on the three forms were arranged in three ways: (1) forward--items paralleled the presentation of…

Undergraduates enrolled in a Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) (Keller Plan) section of Principles of Educational Psychology at Mississippi State University were subjects in a study of the effects of no review (NR), review questions (RQ), and review concepts (RC), on short-term retention in a PSI class. The NR group received no review. The…

Interviews with 40 instructors who had attended mastery learning workshops were conducted by the Chicago City Colleges to determine whether and why the instructors had modified and/or discontinued the mastery learning strategies and to correlate the degree of mastery learning implementation with teacher characteristics and attitudes. The…

This document presents information on one school district's approach to the introduction of success-based instruction. The first section defines success-based instruction, also called "predictable learner mastery" (PLM) and the requirements for having an operational system. The second section compares mastery learning with the PLM system…

The purpose of this project was to produce materials that would foster favorable teacher attitudes toward the philosophy behind mastery learning. One other purpose was to help teachers acquire the skills needed to use mastery learning in their classrooms and to determine the effects on pupils when mastery learning techniques were used. Forty-four…

Several tenets of mastery learning were examined in this study in the context of college level instruction. When students learn for mastery: (1) retention test scores should exhibit small variability and should be unrelated to aptitude; (2) test items which are classified into high and low cognitive behavior subscales should be unrelated to…

Both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced measures are useful tools to the classroom teacher, but each has its specific uses. The criterion-referenced measure is useful when one is interested in whether an individual possesses particular competencies and when there are no quotas as to how many possess that skill. It is particularly useful in…

Cognitive and affective data for about 200 college students taught by a self-paced testing method were compared with data for students taught by the traditional lecture method. Results corroborate contemporary experimental evidence concerning the determinants of achievement and indicate some advantages of the self-paced method. (Author/RD)

Maintains that instructional programs have overemphasized knowledge acquisition at the expense of skill development and affective learning. Recommends careful planning of instructional programs to include primary skills (needed for emotional and physical well-being) and secondary skills (without which one can still survive). (Author/AV)

The effect of increased enrollment is considered on: the provision of individual attention to students, degree of course rigorousness, student evaluation, and test construction. Results from Ohio State University suggest no evidence that increased enrollment has an adverse effect on scholarship. (LBH)

Examines the effects of mastery criteria on the performance and attitudes of undergraduate students who were divided into three treatment groups with mastery criteria set at 70 percent, 80 percent, and 90 percent respectively. Their performance and attitudes were also compared when mastery criteria were increased, decreased, or kept constant…