Development and formative evaluation of a multimedia program using interpretive research methodology

• Main Author: Maor, D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) 2001
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/8684/

This article describes how formative evaluation provided by students and teachers interacting with a multimedia program led to the modification of the program design. The program was developed by a team at Curtin University in Western Australia. The purpose of the multimedia program was to en-courage students to achieve higher-level thinking skills. Be-cause a constructivist approach guided its design, developers were aware of the need to keep the program complex, rich, diverse, and open for the purpose of enabling students to ex-plore, experiment, think, and hypothesize as they engaged in a scientific investigation. The program is based on authentic data collected from research expeditions to Antarctica. The formative evaluation consisted of written and oral responses from year 10 students, experienced teachers, and a peer re-view by a computer expert. The year 10 students evaluated the program twice at an interval of 3 months. The evaluation provided a rich source of information, which was used by the team to modify and improve the program. This formative evaluation raised further questions about how successfully the program promoted the development of the desired high-er- level thinking skills, and whether this type of program can contribute to this educational goal.