An Examination of the Effects of Computer-assisted-instruction on Reading Comprehension

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of computer-assisted-instruction on reading comprehension. A non-equivalent control group design was used to study 30 students from a junior high school in southeast Texas. Both the control and treatment groups took the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test as a pre-test and as a post-test. Both groups studied the same novel and were given the same assignments. However, the treatment group completed the assignments on computers, while the control group completed the assignments without computers. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that there was no significant difference in the reading comprehension of students who received computer-assisted-instruction and the reading comprehension of students who did not receive computer-assisted-instruction.

researchers were interested in determining growth in reading comprehension
and used the Stanford Achievement Test ... to control for this is to use an analysis
of co-variance (ANCOVA) to analyze the data (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997).