• Diagnostic and prescriptive analysis techniques built into ILS provide the basis for more and better individualization of lesson materials for students.
• The logistical problems associated with software distribution and maintenance are eliminated by networking from centralized servers.
• Strong tutorials and extensive drill-and-practice opportunities are provided for students within a wide range of abilities.
• There is an obvious articulation between the content of ILS lessons and standardized assessment approaches used in most schools.
• Students and teachers can experience a common user interface across subjects and grades.
What about the question of their heavily advertised effectiveness? ILS are complex systems that involve the use of specific hardware and software to address large portions of the standard school curriculum, especially in areas such as mathematics, reading, and language arts. Funding for the development of early versions of these systems came from government resources targeted for“ at risk” students, and they are sometimes criticized as having too much“ drill and kill” materials in them( Bailey, 1992). Becker( 1992c) provides evidence that ILS are most effective for those students with either low or high aptitude for regular classroom instruction, but that the 40 % of students in the middle range experience no improvement from ILS over regular classroom instruction. Becker( 1992b) uses meta-analysis techniques to examine the effectiveness of some of the ILS from major vendors. As illustrated in Table 2, most of the results are positive, but much more modest than promised by the vendors themselves.
Table 2. Effect sizes for ILS derived from Becker( 1992b). ILS Source Effect Size Number of Studies Included Vendor # 1 0.17 13 Vendor # 2 0.40 4 Vendor # 3 0.33 3
Despite the lack of evidence that ILS are as effective as the commercial interests behind them claim, they are quite likely to play an even larger role in classrooms in the foreseeable future( Bracey, 1992). For example, a January 1998 press release indicates that Jostens Learning has initiated a seven-year partnership with Addison-Wesley Longman, one of the world’ s largest education publishers, to promote ILS in the United Kingdom where a new government initiative aims at increasing the use of technology in schools [ www. jlc. com ]. The collaboration predicts at least a 34 million dollar contract within the UK alone. In November 1997, Computer Curriculum Corporation inked a reported 50 million dollar agreement with Research Machines, the leading supplier of educational software
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