Difference between linear and branching programmes with their merits and demerits
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Summary. The results of a comparison between a skip‐branching and a linear programme designed to teach logarithms to secondary modern school pupils, indicated an initial superiority for the branching programme which disappeared on retest, two weeks later. The test and retest results of the branching programme correlated significantly with intelligence; those of the linear programme did not. Analysis showed that the branching programme catered as well for the lower ability pupils as did the linear one, but that higher ability pupils profited more from the branching than from the linear programme. There was no difference between the times taken to work through the programmes, but there was in error‐rate. Attitudes towards the two programmes were similar: at first they were highly favourable, but later, much more neutral.