This study reports the principles of development for a computer based instruction (CBI) program in traffic theory. The program is to provide students with the prerequisite knowledge and skills for driving smoothly, safely and with respect for the environment. The traditional method of instruction infers learning objectives from statutory traffic rules. As a result, it emphasises formal knowledge of facts, definitions, and rules but often fails to make their significance to real-life situations explicit. In order to ensure the relevance for actual driving performance, instructional materials for the present CBI program are directly inferred from task analyses. The notion is adopted that all knowledge is inextricably a product of the activity and situations in which it is acquired. The implication for instruction is that information should be presented in the context of tasks having functional relevance for actual task behaviour. Furthermore, these instructional tasks should be embedded in realistic settings. This should enable students to acquire prerequisite task knowledge and associate it with implicit and explicit correlates of the environment in which the knowledge eventually needs to be applied. Analyses have been carried out of the driver's mission and the associated tasks. The results, along with a target population analysis, formed the input for the specifications of the program's structure. The complexity and variability of every day traffic situations is captured in prototypical road categories (themes). For each theme, the prerequisite knowledge and skills to perform the distinguished driving tasks have been formulated into learning objectives. Suggestions for designing instruction are provided for each of the distinguished types of learning objectives. (A) For related work see C 9835 (In: C 9830) (ITRD 898636).
Abstract