Computer Assisted Instruction Software Evaluation Techniques

At present, the growth of CAI is not only stimulated by rapid development of information and communication technology, but also obligingly promoted by the development of educational theory and practice. The educational reforms made in an attempt to change the way of students' learning call for innovations of learning mechanism for CAI. Based upon an investigation of the evolution of CAI, we feel that the assessment of instructional software must be emphasized and developed, in order to judge the instructional software's functionalities, to provide the foundation of improvement for the developers, to guide the development of instructional software and to provide reference of choosing for the customers.Many normal systems and operational frame of assessment have been suggested on the assessment of instructional software, but these designing thoughts of assessment vary so much that the thoughts and perceptions of the assessment must be strengthened and integrated to try to form the instructional software assessment thought of certain scientific guiding functionIn the assessment of the instructional software, the researcher insists on the three most important ways of assessment. The first is the process assessment, to assess whether the process of the instructional software's development is scientific and standard. The second is the educational function assessment, to assess the design of the instructing software and the degree of its realization so as to lead the teacher to develop the instructional software on the basis of learning theory. The third is the technology assessment, to assess the degree of the technology realization in the design of instruction including the feedback and software testing of customers. The three ways of assessment are temporarily called the process assessing technique, educational function assessing technique and technology assessing technique. At the same time of the construction of the three assessing techniques of grade-assessing table, the researcher constructs the assessing system frame of instructional software, that is, the process assessment, educational function assessment and technology assessment are used as the guiding principle to discriminate the types andcharacteristics of different assessing subject (assessor), assessing object (instructing software's) and to provide the assessing system of common norm and different norms for item assessment . The present study pays attention to the shaping assessment of process and the many-faceted nature of assessing subjects and assessing visual angles and respects the types and characteristics of the assessed instructional software. The researcher throws the assessing thought and technology corpus on the platform of instructional software assessment so as to make the assessors easily use the assessing platform to assess the instructing software, Meanwhile, she suggests two models of assessing system design: one is the on-line assessing model on the basis of the instructional software in operation; the other is the assessing management model on the basis of the working platform.With the rapid development of the information technology, many new models of the instructional software will appear and its assessing technology will also develop. The research considers that the application of the on-line assessing model and intelligence technology in the assessment will be the developing direction of the future assessment technology of instructional software.