The Effectiveness of Human Anatomy Instruction as a Function of Media Style

Abstract

Computer software and the Internet provide multimedia interactive learning environments. Because of the potential to use multimedia tools to enhance educational environments, it is important to determine which modalities enhance retention most. Differences between pre and post-tests were compared for groups receiving lecture (LEC), lecture combined with an educational CD-ROM (CD-ROM), or lecture with World Wide Web access (WWW). The CD-ROM group was expected to perform best because of dynamic illustrations and audio sound narration, supporting dual modalities for working memory coding. The WWW group scores on a post-test were expected to learn better than the LEC group, but not as well as the CD-ROM group. As predicted the CD-ROM group had the most improvement from pre to post-test, followed by the LEC and the WWW groups. This suggests that using animated graphics with audio narration benefits learning. Our findings also suggest that Web sites can benefit from the inclusion of interactive media.

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