The Ideal Multimedia-Enabled Classroom: Perspectives from Psychology, Education, and Information Science.

JI. of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (2003) 12(2), 199-221 With the recent technological developments, an opportunity has emerged to introduce more efficient instruction into the classroom. The traditional blackboard approach is gradually giving way to more interaction between the instructor and students. Multimedia can be defined to be multiple forms of media (text, graphics, images, animation, audio and video) that work together. It is unparalleled in its ability to disseminate information quickly and accurately. Before the digital era, multimedia was delivered using one-way communication technologies such as books, magazines, radio, and television. The invention of the personal computer and the Internet, however, has introduced interactivity and created an engaging learning environment. Literature on learning and technology contains evidence that multimedia has the potential to transform every aspect of academic endeavor from instruction and learning to research and dissemination of knowledge. In this article, we will discuss why multimedia should be employed as the centerpiece for an emerging pattern of instruction. It can promote independent and cooperative learning, and improve performance of low achievers and special student populations, while heightening interest in learning, writing, and research. ********** As this article evaluates the effectiveness of multimedia in the learning process, we will start with an overview of what learning is. The nature of the human mind is one of the most challenging questions that have puzzled the philosophers and scientists through the centuries. Learning is the "process of acquiring modifications in existing knowledge, skills, habits, or tendencies through experience, practice, or exercise." (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, retrieved March 2003). Until recently, the quest to understand the thinking and learning processes has been hampered by the lack of systematic research tools. The revolutionary progress in the study of the mind since the 60s provides an abundance of scientific information with significant implications for education. Behaviorism, an influential school of psychology that dominated the psychological theory between the two world wars, takes the objective evidence of behavior (as measured responses to stimuli) as the only concern of its research and the only basis of its theory without reference to conscious experience (Watson, 1913). It was developed in reaction to introspectionism, a doctrine that states psychology must be based essentially on data derived from introspection. A serious limitation of early behaviorism was its focus on observable behaviors in response to stimulus conditions. This narrow approach restricted the study of several critical phenomena (e.g., reasoning, thinking, and understanding) that are closely related to education. While preserving behavior as data, radical behaviorism allowed hypotheses about internal mental states when they were needed to explain certain phenomena (Spence, 1942; Hull, 1943). In the late 50s, a better understanding of the complexity of human behavior led to the development of a new field: cognitive science. From the start, cognitive science attempted to explain learning using a multidisciplinary perspective that included complimentary disciplines such as linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, computer science, neuroscience, and several branches of psychology (Norman, 1980, 1993; Newell & Simon, 1972). New tools, techniques, and methodologies enabled a serious study of mental functioning. Scientists were able to test their theories without speculation about thinking and learning (Newell & Simon, 1972; Anderson, 1982, 1987; DeGroot, 1965, 1969; Ericsson & Charness, 1994), develop insights into the importance of the social and cultural contexts of learning (Cole, 1996; Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff, Mistry, Goncu & Mosier, 1993), and gain perspectives on learning that complement and enrich the experimental research traditions (Erickson, 1986; Hammersly & Atkinson, 1983; Heath, 1982; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Marshall & Rossman, 1955; Miles & Huberman, 1984; Spradley, 1979). …