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Beyond "No Significant Difference"
Beyond "No Significant Difference"
What mattered, according to Clark, was the quality of instruction, not how it was
delivered. The CAI
studied, for example, was rigorously designed according to principles of
instructional design, while the
traditional instruction with which it was compared was not. Thus, Clark argued
that media effects were a
chimera because if instruction were held constant there would be no significant
learning differences
between technology-based and traditional education. Early proponents of
distance education picked up
on Clark's ideas to support their cause. Well designed instruction, they argued,
was well designed
instruction, regardless of how it was delivered. Thus, they maintained, as long as
the quality of
instruction delivered over distance was as good as the quality of traditional
education, there would be no
significant differences in learning between them. Indeed, as we have seen, the
research supports such a
view.