Children's Information Skills: Making Effective Use of Multimedia Sources

Summary

The purpose of this study was to investigate the capacity of young students to extract meaningful information from non‐text based sources when using a hypermedia package in an inquiry activity. Instructions and directions were given to the children and they were encouraged to use the non‐text sources. Observation of student activity and performance revealed that students had little difficulty in using the Mammals CD ROM multimedia encyclopedia as an information source. All students demonstrated a capacity to analyse the multimedia sources and to gather relevant information from them. There were differing levels of analysis shown by students. This was caused more by the forms of information required in projects than an incapacity to use the multimedia sources.