Comprehensive Ph.D. candidacy examination study guide

Instructions: Use the following questions as a study guide for your comprehensive exam. 4-5 questions will be presented to you for your comprehensive exam. You are to select and respond to 3 to meet the requirements for your comprehensive exam.

  1. Identify and describe a learning or instructional theory that helps explain the differences between Digital Natives versus Digital Immigrants in terms of their preferences and propensity to learn from graphics versus text as posited by Marc Prensky.
  2. Define the term "Digital Native" and describe how it is similar to and differs from related terms used to describe different types or generations of people (e.g., Millennial, Net Generation, Generation X, Y, Z).
  3. Characterize the evolution/theory of Instructional Technology from it's origins to the 21st Century. Use a timeline and help identify key authors (e.g., people who influenced the field) along with key dates and events.
  4. A university administrator approaches you with a request to develop training for his/her faculty on the design of e-learning programs. What would be your initial set of questions and/or comments and why would you ask those questions.
  5. Many argue against Instructional Systems Design (ISD) as an approach to the creation of training and educational materials and programs. What are the basic arguments against ISD and how would you address them.
  6. We know that training/education is appropriate only when the target population lacks skills and knowledge. What are other reasons why people do not perform and what performance interventions may be applied to address each performance problem.
  7. Discuss a history of instructional media with a focus on the progression of media toward the current applications of digital educational games. Include discussions of important (sometimes called "landmark") research that has influenced the evolution of instructional media.
  8. Discuss learning modality preferences, with a focus on print and visual components by citing appropriate historical and/or recent research.
  9. Discuss research design methods and statistical techniques that can be used to examine the effects of two instructional media components (Text/Print first vs. Graphics/Visual first) on attitude and performance of two groups of learners (digital natives vs. digital immigrants).