Abstract:

Several means of providing students with informative feedback are presented in this article. They are incorporated into three sample
lessons that are written in APPLESOFT BASIC. These sample lessons can be used to create supplementary CAI materials.

Lesson LIM-LEN MISSPELL indicates the length of the expected input and disallows the inputting of a longer string. Feedback is in the form of reproducing the correct part of the input. Reinputting must be done by retyping the answer. Lesson RESPELL is very similar to LIM-LEN MISSPELL but reinputting of a longer string than the expected length is not prevented. However, reinputting is simplified by allowing students to screen copy the correct portion of the input.

Program MISSPELLING gives specific feedback on misspelling of the input, whether the input is (a) one letter short, (b) contains one misspelled letter, (c) contains two letters in reversed order, or (d) contains the correct rootstem but the form is incorrect, with an indication on whether the students should check the prefix, suffix or both.

In addition to the standard maximization of user friendliness and crash prevention, all three allow extended input. Input that contains commas, quotations, colons, etc. will not result in ?EXTRA IGNORED messages.

Author: Marmo Soemarmo