Date of Graduation

1994

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Typically, hypermedia research has involved brief treatments while examining attitudes, perceptions, and specific content-area performances of students. There is very little research which examines preservice teachers' experiences of learning about hypermedia and cognitive theory as tools to be applied to education. This dissertation examines a variety of issues involved in learning and teaching with and about hypermedia. It consists of four separate studies that provide an in-depth view of preservice teachers' cognitive, metacognitive, supracognitive, and cogitative experiences as they completed a Hypermedia in Education course. These terms are defined in the Introduction section of the dissertation where additional information is provided to set the platform for the four studies. Results from the first study indicated that there was a significant increase in hypermedia knowledge, cognitive-level, and concept map complexity as a result of the course. Learning style and gender were also examined. The second study revealed that there was not a significant increase in metacognitive accuracy as a result of the course for the class as a whole; however, there were interesting patterns which approached significance based on groupings by students' predominant format-selection. The third study revealed significant differences for how students applied mental models to student-created and commercially developed hypermedia software exercises and significant differences on their mental model applications based on instructional design differences. The fourth study summarizes and synthesizes the other three while providing information from a qualitative methodology which, in some regards, completes the other studies by providing explanations for their findings while also validating them. In summary, this study provides a well-rounded examination of students' changes and experiences within a hypermedia environment using both traditional and nontraditional measures while providing possible answers to several broad concerns--(a) What are some ways of improving, and measuring this improvement, of students' knowledge of hypermedia? (b) How do we begin to assess students' metacognitive growth within hypermedia environments? (c) What factors influence students' application of theory? and (d) How do students explain their hypermedia experiences?

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