Student Access of Supplemental Multimedia and Success in an Online Course

Abstract

Institutions are developing online courses that contain rich multimedia, but research shows there is little difference in student achievement when these types of materials are included. However, many studies report the results of the presence, not the access, of multimedia learning objects. In addition, they do not categorize the multimedia as supplemental or required. To better understand the relationship between multimedia inclusion and student success, this study investigates student access of three categories of supplemental multimedia in an online course and uses access data as a filter for comparing student final grades. A summary of statistically significant differences in mean final grades at four levels of supplemental multimedia access is included.