Users of educational hypertext are faced with the challenge of creating meaning both within and between texts. Cohesion is an important factor contributing to whether a reader is able to capture meaning and comprehend text. When readers are required to fill in conceptual gaps in text, comprehension can fail if they do not have sufficient knowledge. Cohesion helps low-knowledge readers to create a more coherent mental representation of the text. However, text that is too cohesive can inhibit active processing, and thus reduce coherence for more knowledgeable readers. Similar patterns have been found for hypertext, which requires readers to create coherence between multiple electronic texts. Domain novices are in greater need of explicit pointers to important links between documents and gain from having less control over system navigation. Domain experts are in less need of scaffolding within the system. We discuss the use of a multimedia reading strategy training program to help low-knowledge readers better understand less cohesive text. Finally, we discuss four principles to guide hypertext development geared toward improving coherence and metacognitive engagement.

This paper reports the results and insights of an exploratory investigation of the effectiveness of a prototypic virtual problem-based learning (VPBL) exercise delivered via the WWW, that uses Hypermedia Assisted Instructional Technologies (HAIT). The study targeted all first year medical students at a south-central University School of Medicine who were enrolled in the human physiology course during the Spring 2000 (n = 150). A quasiexperimental, post-test only research design compared the VPBL and a text-based version of the same PBL exercise on students ’ achievement, as measured by a set of selected physiology examination items, and their perceptions of the learning environment, as measured by the Teaching and Learning Environment Questionnaire (TLEQ) (Chauvin & Bowdish, 1998). Findings suggest that the VPBL is equally as effective as the text-based version for enhancing students ’ learning and their learning environment in small group, PBL sessions. In this paper, we examine the evidence supporting the VPBL innovation and explore what constitutes necessary and sufficient evidence that an educational innovation should be incorporated appropriately into the medical educational practice of a school. We examine instructional design issues such as learner control, instructional control, and teacher and learner roles as related to instructional development for the WWW, by comparing and contrasting our observations of the VPBL design experiment with the professional literature.

Deep learning will ensurethat tertiary students fully understand the implications of what they aretaught. However,deep learning requires the students to actively engage in their education. It involves maintaining their motivation and building good learning practices. Computer-based education (CBE) has identified the need to promote deep learning yet to achieve it, teachers must take one of two options. They must either construct their own CBE environments or adopt a preconstructed environment. Teachers need to construct their own educational environment but this is not always successfully achievable with a computer system. CBE environments that areconstructed by teachers requirethem to make use of tools. In the past teachers had to author any kind of educational environment themselves. With physical media, authoring can be daunting but a familiarity with the tools makes it viable. With computer media, the tools (programming languages, for instance) areunfamiliar which makes the authori...

needed. Please do not return it to the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Virtual reality and brain anatomy: a randomised trial