Relating E-Learning Effectiveness to Choice of Media for its Contents: A Quasi-Experimental Approach

Improved multimedia capabilities of information technology have resulted in increased interest in e-learning programs. Consequently, researchers and practitioners are investigating ways for design and development of effective e-learning programs. The prevailing tendency seems to be to use “richer” medium, in the progression from text to graphics to audio to video. It is not clear, however, if a “richer” medium always provides proportionately higher learning effectiveness. In this research-in-progress paper, we present a research model that the relationship between choice of media to present contents of an e-learning program and the program’s learning effectiveness is moderated by the learning domain of the program and the learning styles of learners. We then present a robust framework of quasi-experiments to fully test the research model, followed by encouraging results from three quasi-experiments as a prototype of the full framework. Lessons from the prototype are incorporated in the framework of quasi-experiments.