In one experiment with 256 undergraduates, computer-based lesson versions that included practice produced significantly higher posttest scores than versions without practice¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2003 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q3 i? The four treatment versions that included practice scored significantly higher on the posttest than the two versions without practice. → Martin 2003 q3 i? The omnibus one-way ANOVA on posttest scores showed a significant difference among the six treatment groups. → Martin 2003

Evidence¶

Martin 2003¶

Martin, F., Klein, J., & Sullivan, H. (2003). Effects of Instructional Events in Computer-Based Instruction. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED484984

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Experiment with 256 undergraduate computer literacy students randomly assigned within pretest blocks to six lesson versions. The ANOVA yielded "F (5, 250) = 11.689, p <.01"; Scheffe tests showed the four practice-including groups (means above 17) significantly outperformed the two without practice (below 15).

"A one -way ANOVA conducted on the po sttest data yielded a significant difference between the treatment groups on the posttest, F (5, 250) = 11.689, p <.01. Follow -up Scheffe tests revealed that each of the four groups with means scores above 17, as listed above and shown in the table, scored significantly higher than the two groups identified above that scored below 15."

Studies bearing on this claim¶

After a model, does practice with support and feedback produce better unaided performance than no practice or unguided practice? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 22 narrower claims that bear on it: 31 distinct studies (12 causal, 8 review, 7 theoretical, 3 qualitative, 1 quant-synthesis), q1–q4, 1 of 31 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Study	Design	Effect as recorded	Bears on this claim through
Martin 2003	q3 · causal · r2	i?	this claim; Individually removing objectives, examples, or review from a well-designed computer-based (qualifies); Students notice the absence of practice and examples: attitude items about those events ar (supports)
Sweller & Cooper 1985	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Worked examples reduce unnecessary search for novices. (supports); Studying worked examples improves novices' algebra performance on problems with the same s (qualifies)
Pratt and Savoy-Levine 1998	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. (supports)
Chi et al. 2001	q2 · causal · r1	i?	Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. (supports)
Swanson and Lussier 2001	q4 · quant-synthesis · r?	i?	Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. (supports)
van de Pol et al. 2010	q3 · review · r2	i?	Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. (supports); Fading support promotes the transfer of responsibility from instructor to learner. (supports)
Wood et al. 1976	q3 · qualitative · r?	i?	Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. (supports)
Yibo Meng 2026	q3 · causal · r2	i3	In a randomised study with 40 CPR-naive lay adults in Tibet, 10 minutes of TibetCPR traini (supports); TibetCPR training produced depth-accuracy gains that substantially exceeded unguided pract (supports)
Karpicke 2017	q2 · review · r3	i?	Taking initial multiple-choice tests without feedback can lead students to later produce t (supports)
Bastani Hamsa 2025	q3 · causal · r3	i?	A guardrailed GPT-4 tutor with teacher-designed hints improves assisted practice performan (qualifies)
Mutlu Cukurova 2026	q2 · theoretical · r3	i?	Reviews citing one randomised trial (Bastani et al. 2025) report that unrestricted GPT-4 a (qualifies)
Reshaping Undergraduate Computer Science Education in the Generative AI Era 2026	q2 · qualitative · r1	i?	Reviews citing one randomised trial (Bastani et al. 2025) report that unrestricted GPT-4 a (qualifies)
Zemin Guo 2026	q1 · review · r2	i?	Reviews citing one randomised trial (Bastani et al. 2025) report that unrestricted GPT-4 a (qualifies)
Khosravi 2026	q2 · theoretical · r3	i?	Reviews citing one randomised trial (Bastani et al. 2025) report that unrestricted GPT-4 a (qualifies)
van Gog et al. 2011	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Example-first conditions outperformed problem-first conditions on an immediate circuit tes (supports)
Pollock et al. 2002	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Part-task practice reduces cognitive load for absolute novices during initial skill acquis (supports)
Renkl et al. 2002	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Fading support promotes the transfer of responsibility from instructor to learner. (supports)
Barbieri & Booth 2016	q2 · causal · r?	i?	Studying worked examples improves novices' algebra performance on problems with the same s (qualifies)
Kalyuga et al. 2003	q2 / q3 · review · r?	i?	Worked-example guidance becomes less effective as learner expertise increases. (qualifies); Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as exp (qualifies)
Renkl & Atkinson 2003	q3 · theoretical · r?	i?	Worked-example guidance becomes less effective as learner expertise increases. (qualifies)
Kalyuga et al. 1998	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as exp (qualifies)
Obikwelu 2013	q1 · theoretical · r2	i?	Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as exp (qualifies)
Slava Kalyuga 2010	q2 · review · r2	i?	Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as exp (qualifies)
Leonard Tetzlaff 2021	q2 · review · r2	i?	Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as exp (qualifies)
van Merriënboer et al. 2006	q2 · theoretical · r?	i?	A training-design argument, not tested by any study recorded here, holds that practising w (qualifies)
Aydinbek C 2022	q2 · review · r2	i?	Practice of grammar rules improves only the practiced skill, showing skill specificity of (qualifies); Automatization of L2 skills requires extensive practice in a consistent environment, not r (qualifies)
Robert M. DeKeyser 1997	q3 · causal · r?	i?	Practice of grammar rules improves only the practiced skill, showing skill specificity of (qualifies)
Yingli Wang 2008	q2 · review · r2	i?	Task rehearsal improves fluency and complexity on the repeated task but does not transfer (qualifies)
Robert DeKeyser 2010	q1 · theoretical · r2	i?	Purely mechanical drills are of limited use because they do not train learners to conceptu (qualifies)
Won Ik Cho 2026	q1 · theoretical · r3	i?	AI assistance that substitutes for learning activities may improve immediate performance w (supports)
Rana Abou Khamis 2026	q2 · qualitative · r2	i?	GenAI compresses traditional sysadmin expertise pathways by shortcutting hands-on practice (qualifies)

Discussion¶

The one study recorded here varied which instructional events a computer-based lesson included; its entry describes practice being present or absent and says nothing about the feedback given during practice, so it cannot separate practice from feedback. The size of the difference is not established: the entry prints an F test and group means but no effect size.

Media comparison studies produce uninterpretable "no significant difference" findings. — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
AI-mediated feedback in hands-on exhibits improves learning and engagement — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
Treatment version significantly affects student attitudes, with the lean program most negative and no-practice next — related
Ninth graders using the computer as a translation tool (utilities group) outperformed a computation group on applications problems — related
Students notice the absence of practice and examples: attitude items about those events are rated lower when the events are missing — related
Short chunking study outlines produce higher test performance than long chunking study outlines — related
Individually removing objectives, examples, or review from a well-designed computer-based lesson did not significantly reduce achievement — related
The review reports that students receiving situated instruction outperformed a lecture-based control group on a causality posttest — related
Offloading work to AI costs learning: students given answers did well in practice but scored lower on an unassisted exam — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`practice-presence-raises-cbi-posttest-achievement`
`title`	`In one experiment with 256 undergraduates, computer-based lesson versions that included practice produced significantly higher posttest scores than versions without practice`
`description`	`In one experiment with 256 undergraduates, computer-based lesson versions that included practice produced significantly higher posttest scores than versions without practice`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`moderate`
`newest_evidence`	`2003`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-09-26`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `martin-2003`

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