The Impact of an Interactive Multimedia System on the Quality of Learning in Educational Psychology

AbstractA problem-solving approach with an emphasis on the concepts of situated cognition and anchored instruction was used to guide the creation of an interactive multimedia learning environment for an introductory educational psychology course. Classroom analyses produced by students who participated in the course using this environment were compared with papers from students who took a traditional course on the same material. Students from the multimedia course used more research and theory to support their analyses and integrated their presentations of observation and theory better than those in the traditional course. Students’ responses to the multimedia environment were gathered through individual interviews. Though preliminary in nature, this study provides evidence of the potential for using interactive multimedia environments to develop analytic problem-solving ability in a specific content domain.