Traditionally, CAI has been characterized by (1) individualized instruction based on performance, and (2) real-time interaction. Efforts to provide CAI on general purpose equipment have not been successful, and as a result many have turned to dedicated equipment (TICCIT, PLATO). An alternate approach to CAI, on general purpose equipment, is proposed in this paper. A typical interaction between a student and a CAI system can be viewed as a stimulus from the system, followed by a response from the student, followed by feedback plus another stimulus from the system. In many applications, the student response interval can be relatively long. The approach used by QUICK is to purposely extend this student response time by means of the type of stimulus issued; then it is no longer necessary to have an interactive program waiting for the student to respond. Instead, the interaction can be accomplished via a batch job triggered by student input. In the QUICK system, the unit of courseware is a task, consisting of information, instructions, and a number of questions to be answered, which may take the student from a few minutes to several hours or days to complete. In a science course, for example, a task might contain instructions for performing an experiment. Such a system has a wide range of applications, from CMI type uses which primarily direct the student to existing materials for study, to CAI type uses which provide tutorials and drill excercises for the student. The QUICK system has been implemented and used in a first year Biology course and an introductory FORTRAN programming course at PURDUE. Student input can be accomplished via several devices - teletype terminal, punched card reader, or marked sense card reader. This paper presents some details of the currently implemented QUICK system, as well as some goals and future directions.
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/quick-a-quasi-interactive-computer-based-instructional-system-3CECbXV7J7