Novel Multimedia Instruction for Teaching Anatomy Online

Abstract

The cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) is a well-evidenced approach to producing effective instructional multimedia. Few studies have tested the effects of CTML in the teaching of anatomy.The primary aim of this thesis was to evaluate knowledge retention and self-reports of confidence and levels of difficulty using CTML applied to a short lesson in anatomy for graduate medical students. Two experiments were conducted, with students in their first (n=116) and second year (n=76) of the Sydney Medical Program. The experiments were a pre-test/post-test design with a short media lesson as the independent variable. Students in the control group, watched a five minutes excerpt from an existing online lecture. The treatment group watched the same media following modifications using CTML principles. The data collected pre- and post intervention included: background demographics, six retention questions and four Likert-style self-rating questions. In both experiments: there were significant improvements in retention scores and self-reports of confidence pre- vs, post for both conditions, and the post-test scores between control and treatment groups were not significantly different. However, Jacobsons RCI showed that more students in the treatment groups had larger learning gains. These data show that applying CTML to multimedia lessons for teaching anatomy improves retention and confidence for a sub-population of graduate medical students.