INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA LEARNING ON HEALTH CARE AMONG LEBANESE WOMEN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

2012 Issues in Information Systems  
Multimedia learning greatly enhanced the learning outcome and experience of learners exposed to it. The proposed study will explore the usefulness of multimedia learning software devised to educate Lebanese pregnant women who have a low level of formal education about pregnancy and early infant care. The study will be based on the media richness theory. It is expected that through media rich programs, communication of information is facilitated, promoting the resolving of indecisiveness and
more » ... guity that stems out of the lack of knowledge or information about a given a subject and the inability to convey a meaning of what is being said respectively. 161 This paper is structured as follows. First, we review the media richness theory from which we infer our research model and hypotheses. We also examine pertinent literature on the topic. We offer in the last section a summary of our current state of research and further research is suggested in concluding remarks. Media Richness Theory Media richness theory was derived from information processing theory, which was developed by Daft, Lengel, and Trevino (5, 4 , 3) . They claimed that the communication competence among people is influenced by the fitness of the media and the characteristics of the communication task. Media richness theory spreads the idea that communication richness (or leanness) is an independent property of communication media, and outlines media richness as the capability to expedite common understanding within a time interval. In other words, media richness refers to its ability to enable common meaning and understanding (5). Daft and Lengel (5) addressed multimedia learning in the light of the media richness theory. The subject discussed by multimedia software should communicate four components (listed below) to be considered media rich. Without these four components the multimedia might attract the learner's attention, however, would be of low educational and learning benefit. First, the multimedia software should prompt a common analysis and understanding of the subject discussed among the learners. This gives the learners common ground of understanding and convergence of viewpoints regarding the subject (16). This component is labeled as the capacity for instant reaction (16). The capacity to transmit multiple cues is another component of the media richness theory. The mixture of animation, video, voice, images, diagrams, numbers rather than focusing on one cue or using text only was necessary to make the multimedia software media rich and thus increased the learning scores of the learners (16). Language variety is very important too . Discussing a certain subject with a multimedia software was best done through the language that the learners were comfortable with. Moreover, each language has its own set of ideas of concepts that are understood by its original speaker and should be addressed carefully (16).
doi:10.48009/1_iis_2012_160-166 fatcat:hsci5mvifbfavogaad5y4hyzfu