Exploring the relationships between Web usability and students’ perceived learning in Web-based multimedia (WBMM) tutorials (original) (raw)
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Naturalistic research has shown that a web lecture intervention that includes multimedia lectures studied before class, short homework assignments, and in-class application activities can increase students' grades and satisfaction. The multimedia lectures, called web lectures, are a combination of video, audio, and PowerPoint streamed over the web. This experimental study was motivated by a desire to understand the contribution of web lectures themselves to the web lecture intervention's success. Educational multimedia design guidelines from Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) were used to evaluate and hypothesize about the learning efficacy of three information-equivalent-Video+Audio+PPT (web lecture), Audio+PPT, PPT+Transcript-and one information-nonequivalent-PPT-Only-educational presentation conditions. 60 randomly assigned participants studied the educational materials and completed a posttest and exit survey. Participants in the web lecture condition performed statistically significantly better on the posttest than all other conditions, and survey responses indicated that participants perceived the combination of modalities used by web lectures as more educationally effective than those used in the other conditions. This study verifies the educational contribution of web lectures to the web lecture intervention, web lectures' educational effectiveness as standalone learning objects, and the value-added of video for educational multimedia. These results were not completely in line with our hypothesis based on CLT and CTML, suggesting these theories' limited applicability for multimedia presentations with characteristics of those used in this study. Several possible factors that might account for the results inconsistent with CLT and CTML are identified, including the visibility of gesture in the video and the length and subject matter of the presentations.
2003
A great deal has been written in the educational literature about the use of distance education, given the rapid expansion of the World Wide Web on the Internet. Web-based courses are now available or under development at many academic institutions and through corporate universities. Educators are concerned, however, about ensuring the quality of online courses, and many question whether online courses can maintain the same high standards of excellence as traditional classroom instruction. One way to ensure quality control over online instruction is to establish an ongoing instructional quality assessment process. This chapter discusses background information and several considerations for assessing the quality of online instruction. (Contains 47 references.) (GCP) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the ori inal document. Assessing the Quality of Online Instruction: Integrating Instructional Quality and Web Usability Assessments
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