Integrative evaluation: an emerging role for classroom studies of CAL

This paper reviews the work of a team over two and a half years whose remit has been to "evaluate" a diverse range of CAL - computer assisted learning - in use in a university setting. It gives an overview of the team's current method, including some of the instruments most often used, and describes some of the painful lessons from early attempts. It then offers a critical discussion of what the essential features of the method are, and of what such studies are and are not good for. One of the main conclusions, with hindsight, is that its main benefit is as integrative evaluation: to help teachers make better use of the CAL by adjusting how it is used, rather than by changing the software or informing purchasing decisions.