A report on the development of an instructional unit entitled Designing book pages

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a self-instructional learning activities package about book design, and to test it on a group of vocational students, in order to identify problem areas in the development of this type of instructional material and to construct a model for systemic development. -- The unit consists of a booklet containing about forty pages of information interspersed with review questions and practice exercises. It was tested on two classes at the College of Trades and Technology in St. John's, Newfoundland. The formative evaluation was performed by the Commercial Art class of 1983, the summative evaluation by the Printing Class of 1985. -- The students wrote a pre-test before studying the material and a post-test afterwards. In the course of the formative evaluation, the unit was revised and retested when the survey of student attitudes and an item analysis indicated that parts of it were confusing to the students. -- Statistical analyses of the pre-test, post-test and retest scores were attempted, but were inconclusive because of the small number of students involved. -- The developer concluded that the self-study method works well for imparting cognitive skills, but that the learning of psychomotor skills is dependent upon the live presence of a skilled expert. -- The instructional unit has been used as a model for the revision of the entire sixty-six module Printing curriculum, at the College of Trades and Technology.