The Effectiveness of Interactive Multimedia as an Instructional Aid for Learning Basic Clinical Skills and Knowledge

Abstract

The goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that students using interactive multimedia will learn to perform the measurement of a basic clinical examination skill and understand its physiology more proficiently than by using non-interactive media and text-based educational materials, as measured immediately after the treatment and 3 months later. Three groups of second year medical students were presented with identical learning content with similar instructional design elements, but were exposed to different instructional media: a) interactive multimedia on CD ROM; b) video-tape with text \& still graphics study guide; c) text and still graphics study guide alone. A control group of students was later incorporated into the study which used traditional study resources. Dependent measures included an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), objective examination (MCQ and short answer), and short essays. Students' attitudes toward each type of instructional technology were measured using an affective instrument. The results of this study provide some evidence for the efficacy of using interactive multimedia as an instructional technology. Student treatment groupings produced similar scores on the OSCE and Objective examination. While the interactive multimedia grouping had significantly lower mean scores on the immediate Short Essay measure, students exposed to interactive multimedia scored higher on both the delayed Objective and Short Essay measures than other groups administered 3 months later. This finding indicates less decay in the retention of information and its synthesis by the interactive multimedia group. Also, students generally preferred learning with the interactive multimedia module. Finally, mean comparisons with the control group indicate that students' performance on all measures improves with exposure to any form of instruction.