Such assessments are still in their infancy. Students in the first section liked their class better and felt they understood the material more thoroughly. In fact, every woman who took the computer-based lab preferred it to the conventional lab. The students who used computers, however, scored no better in their mastery of the course material. Steven Heidemann, professor of physiology at Michigan State University, found similar results with students who had access to computer animations of three-dimensional structures and processes.
Students say they like it better.
They say it helps them understand the material better. But when you measure how they do on exams, you don't find any difference. Yet the assessments of these labs largely measured factual knowledge. A better way to look at the results, Chapman suggested, is to note that students did not learn less through the computer-based approach. As new information technologies begin to live up to their potential in the classroom, it becomes ever more important to ensure they are available broadly to students and institutions, said Joseph G. Perpich, the Institute's vice president for grants and special programs.