CAL evaluation: future directions

Scientific, experimental methodology was previously considered to be the only acceptable approach to educational research. Two important principles of experimental design are: to balance individual differences within study populations and so achieve generalizable results, and to attempt to isolate the effects of a single resource for evaluation purposes. Problems with this approach were reported in the literature of the 1970s (Elton and Laurillard, 1979; MacDonald and Jenkins, 1979) when the influence on learning of individual and contextual factors was recognized.