Using Visualizations of Mental Models as Assessment Tools for Students’ Multimedia Design and Development Skills

• In Event: Roundtable Session 40
  In Roundtable Session: Technology, Instruction, Cognition and Learning SIG Roundtable 1: Issues in Knowledge Representation

Abstract

In this study, teams of graduate students in a two-semester, multimedia design and development course used an authoring program to create multimedia software for authentic clients. This study examined how visualizations of students’ mental models were used as assessment tools to measure the changes in their knowledge of multimedia design and development. The comparison of students’ visual representations of their mental models of multimedia design and development from the beginning and end of the course, learning journals, interviews, and learning style inventories provided insight into these changes in their mental models. Students demonstrated significant transformations in their mental models from linear, individualistic, and skills-based models at the beginning of the course to recursive, collaborative, and team-oriented models at the end.

Author

• Sara G. Mcneil, University of Houston