The effects of three different hypermedia courses on students' attitudes

摘要

All three courses were effective at reducing awareness concerns, but only the Spring group's informational concerns were reduced. We attribute this difference to the Spring group having fewer authoring sessions and, therefore, more time for “consuming” more information about hypermedia than the other two groups. The lack of change in the three groups' personal concerns is considered due to the general nature of the course. We attribute no change in the three groups' management concerns to the highly structured, well-articulated assignments and deadlines of all three courses.The most likely reason for the Spring group's consequence concerns increasing was because of the extra sessions on Ultimedia, in which segmenting and packaging the extensive program for use with students in traditional settings was central to the discussions. The other two courses had either fewer or no Ultimedia sessions, resulting in less discussion about the impact of hypermedia on students.As regards collaboration concerns, we attribute the lack of change in the Spring group and the increases in the two Fall groups to the extra authoring sessions in the Fall courses. Authoring, or programming, allows for more interaction among students as they develop their programs.Finally, the increases in the refocusing concerns of all three groups are considered to be due to the extensive readings assigned them. We did not restrict the readings to “successful” hypermedia situations, but allowed the groups to read and discuss research- and application-based articles that provided both the pros and cons of hypermedia use.In essence, sequence of instruction probably has little to do with any differences. Instead, the extended sessions on an information-rich hypermedia environment (which discuss its use and how it is curricularly “packaged”) affect consequence concerns. On the other hand, the extended sessions on authoring and its “community spirit” seem to affect collaboration concerns. The curricular dilemma is that one (working with an existing hypermedia environment versus developing a hypermedia environment) precludes the other owing to the time restrictions imposed by the instructional frameworks of these three courses.