The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of computer-aided instruction as compared with the traditional lecture method of cognitive learning of new curriculum materials. It was hypothesized that students instructed by the computer-aided instruction method would gain higher knowledge of the subject matter in terms of cognitive test scores than students instructed by the traditional method. Subjects were high school students in a vocational education program who were randomly selected and assigned to a control group (n=35) and an experimental group (n=35). Both groups received instruction on one area of BASIC programming in agriculture. The measuring instrument consisted of two identical forms of a test. The content validity of the test was determined by a panel of experts. To determine the test-retest reliability of the test, it was administered to 10 undergraduate students in agriculture education at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, who retook the same test two weeks later. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was calculated, and the reliability coefficient was considered acceptable. The control group for the experiment received instruction via a lecture by the researcher, whereas the experimental group used the computer program for instruction. The pretest and posttest were administered to both groups prior to and following the instructional treatments. Results of an independent t-test performed on the test results for both groups indicate that the computer-aided instruction method was more effective than the traditional method, but it is suggested that further studies should be done. (DJR)