The use of multimedia support materials in engineering education

Abstract This paper describes the use of multimedia lectures in an engineering economy course that is attended by 200 sophomore engineering students at Virginia Tech. The purpose of this paper is to examine the important issue of applying innovative information technology to support the effective dissemination of learning materials and to report on an experiment in which the benefits of multimedia-based support materials are assessed. Our hypothesis is that students exposed to a series of multimedia-based lectures will exhibit greater interest in the subject matter and will eventually perform better or as well as students in the traditional teaching environment. In addition, we hope to establish that students tend to become more involved (participate actively) in a multimedia-based teaching environment to the extent of actually making positive suggestions for improvement to the computer presentations. Just as important, we will support and encourage such contributions made by cross-disciplinary groups of students in the hope of cultivating student's interest in the subject matter throughout the course.