Advances in scaffolding learning with hypertext and hypermedia: a summary and critical analysis

Hypermedia learning environments such as the World Wide Web and CD based multi media encyclopedias are extensively used in education, frequently with the intent of helping students learn challenging educational subjects. However, we caution educators, instructional designers, and researchers not to be seduced by design approaches for hypermedia environments that allow learners to access, manipulate, or restructure multiple representations of information while receiving little or no scaffolding during learning. As the authors of this special issue demonstrate, learning with hypertext and hypermedia is challenging for learners of all ages and that systematic and carefully designed research is needed in order to contribute to our understanding of how to promote learning with non linear systems such as these. We further argue that hypermedia design approaches should be informed by empirical research with multiple methodologies from various disciplines rather than adopting ad hoc or intuition-based approaches to designing and evaluating educational hypermedia. Furthermore, our conceptions and formulations of scaffolding have deviated from the original conception (i.e., Wood et al. 1976) of the construct so much that there is some confusion and a general lack of synthesis regarding the nature, role, and effectiveness of scaffolding in learning with hypermedia (see Azevedo and Hadwin 2005; Jacobson, this volume). What we need is a concerted effort by researchers from various fields to conduct theoretically-driven laboratory and classroom research from which to draw scientifically-based principles for the design of hypermedia-based learning environments intended to foster students' learning about complex and challenging topics. The papers in this special issue hopefully represent principled steps towards addressing such issues. The goal of this article is to summarize the papers in this volume, and to