| Abstract: | In higher education, instruction is typically teacher-directed through traditional lecture formats and assignments with predetermined criteria. Through hypermedia-based materials, new ways of learning are possible based on learner control and self-directed instruction; such approaches require personal goal-setting, nonlinear exploration of materials, context-based problem solving, and progress monitoring. For students to learn in new ways, instructors have to teach in new ways. Teachers cannot simply take new hypermedia applications and implement them within existing approaches if higher level outcomes are to be realized. The findings in this study are consistent with previous research studies which demonstrate equal or better learning using hypermedia-based instructional materials when students are allowed learner control. If the learning profile for each student determines the effective use of an application, then hypermedia is best implemented as a learning tool. |
