Effectiveness of Behaviorist and Cognitive Program Approaches on Student Performance

This study compares the effectiveness of behaviorist and cognitive program approaches on student performance in educational technology. The aim is to investigate the difference of the impact of behaviorist and cognitive programs approaches on student performance. The study concludes that behavioristic program approach is more effective than the cognitive program approach.

Introduction
Educational technology is an important tool for facilitating learning and improving performance
by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. Educational
technology is focused on e-learning, instructional technology, information and communication
technology in education and multimedia learning.
Two approaches that can be used for educational technology are behaviorism and cognitive
approaches. Various studies have tried to compare these two approaches. Comparisons have been
made on behaviorist and cognitive approaches with respect to mental activity, structuring,
tutoring and assessment and motivation with respect to learners’ procedural ID models.
Statement of the problem.
Many studies have been carried out to investigate the impact of educational technology on
student performance. However, little research has been carried out to investigate the difference
of the impact of behaviorist and cognitive programs approaches on student performance.
Aim
The aim of the study was to compare the effectiveness of the cognitive and behaviorist program
approaches on student performance.
Research questions
The following research questions were formulated in order to meet the objective of the study.
i. Is there a difference in the effectiveness of behaviorist and cognitive programs
approaches on student performance?
ii. Is the behaviorist program approach more effective than the cognitive program approach?

Hypotheses.
Based on the above research questions, the following hypotheses were formulated;
i. H0: There is no difference in effectiveness between behaviorist and cognitive program
approaches.
ii. H1: There is difference in effectiveness between behaviorist and cognitive program
approaches.
iii. H0: Behaviorist program approach is not more effective compared to the cognitive
program approach.
H1: Behaviorist program approach is more effective than the cognitive program approach.
Results
Descriptive statistics
Behavioristic Program Participants
The mean achievement score for the behavioristic program was found to be 537.24. The standard
deviation was found to be 79.05, implying that about majority of the data lies within about 40
standard deviations on either side of the mean. The range of the data was found to be 350
implying that the data is widely dispersed.
The skewness value was found to be -0.006933. The negative value implies that the data is
slightly skewed to the left. Kurtosis was found to be 0.1348 implying that the data obtained from
behavioristic approach is approximately normally distributed.
The data has no outliers.

Cognitive Program Participants
The mean achievement score for the cognitive program was found to be 480.69. The standard
deviation was found to be 95.24, implying that majority of the data lies within about 47 standard
deviations on either side of the mean. The range of the data was found to be 430 implying that
the data is widely dispersed.
The skewness value was found to be -0.3203. The negative value implies that the data is skewed
to the left. Kurtosis was found to be 0.5891 implying that the data obtained from behavioristic
approach is approximately normally distributed.
The data has an outlier.
Inferential statistics
Univariate analysis
Tests for location (student’s t test, sign and signed rank test) were carried out to determine
whether means of the two data sets equal zero.
Behavioristic Program Participants
The three tests had p-vales of 0.0001. Since the p-values are less than 0.05 we reject the null
hypothesis that the mean of behavioristic program responses equals zero in favor of the
alternative hypothesis. We therefore conclude that the mean response score of behavioristic
approach is not equal to zero.
Cognitive Program Participants

The three tests performed to assess whether the mean of cognitive program scores is zero had p-
values of 0.001, which are less than 0.05. These values imply that we reject the null hypothesis
that the mean score from cognitive program equals zero. We thus conclude that the mean score is
different from zero.
Bivariate analysis
Independent t test was carried out to assess differences in the behavioristic program and
cognitive program approach data sets.
The p-values from the independent t test for assessing whether the mean difference of the two
groups equals zero was found to be 0.0170 when equal variances are assumed. When uequal
variances are assumed, the p-value was found to be 0.0171. The p values, being less than 0.05,
imply that we reject the null hypothesis that the mean difference between the two groups equals
zero. We then conclude that the mean s of the two groups are different.
Discussion
Both descriptive and inferential statistics have shown that the two groups different levels of
effectiveness for teaching physical science to middle school students. Behavioristic program was
found to be more effective than the cognitive program approach since the behavioristic program
approach had a higher mean compared to the cognitive program approach.