The Life and Death of Software: Examining the Selection Process

This article describes the results of an Internet-based survey asking how foreign language instructors chose courseware. We first review the literature on software selection, looking particularly at methods and tools. We then report the results of a questionnaire advertised on several Internet lists for foreign language teachers. The main factors on which teachers base their selection were reported to be testing the software and the features advertised. We examine the effectiveness of various selection methods and describe problems in the selection process. This study does not present statistically valid conclusions because of the small number of responses, but it does suggest some problems with present methods of software selection.

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