IMEJ main Wake Forest University Homepage Search articles Archived volumes Table of Content of this issue

1. Introduction
2. Cognitive Engagement
3. The Multimedia Program
4. The Study
5. Summary & Conclusions
6. References
   
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Can Higher Order Thinking and Cognitive Engagement Be Enhanced with Multimedia?
Dr. Sue Stoney, Edith Cowan University
Dr. Ron Oliver, Edith Cowan University

Abstract
The study outlined in this paper was part of a larger study that examined the use of interactive multimedia in motivating and engaging adult learners. This paper describes the use of the multimedia microworld to explore and promote the use of self-regulated learning, and in particular examines the degree to which higher order thinking was achieved. The study found that using a microworld meant that more emphasis was placed on the acquisition of higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills, with less emphasis placed on the assimilation of a large body of isolated facts. The research outcomes also highlighted the fact that basic skills were not learned in isolation, but in the course of completing real world tasks which integrated a number of skills.


About the authors...



1. Introduction

As computers become more and more integrated into higher education activities, there is a need to consider not only the unique opportunities they bring to learning and learners, but also the benefits that may be derived from their use.

When students learn with computers, they really learn with the software program—the computer simply provides the vehicle for the learning. It is imperative, therefore, that learning programs be designed to exploit the flexibility that resource-based, self-paced learning can provide. However, in spite of there being many thousands of computers in universities, they are mainly used as a supplementary learning tool rather than as a primary learning tool.

In order to use the computer as a primary learning tool, the very nature of learning with technology has to be rethought. Interactive Multimedia has, to date, failed to fulfil its early promise of making a significant difference in the way in which learners learn. One of the reasons for this may be that multimedia programs are designed for a "…single focal point teaching through a linear sequential process." In other words when programs are designed around old teaching paradigms, students are confined to a narrow learning experience. However, with a well-constructed multimedia program, the experience of the student changes to one of cooperative, contextual learning where students are left to explore the learning environment in their own time, at their own pace and in the order of their choosing. This form of learning has the potential to increase the motivation and engagement of the students.

This paper will explore the notion that students who learn in an applied setting, such as a microworld, will experience cognitive engagement and motivation through the relevance of the material to the students’ real world or macroworld.



2. Cognitive Engagement

Cognitive engagement is observable when the learners are giving sustained, engaged attention to a task requiring mental effort; and authentic, useful learning is produced by extended engagement in optimally complex cognitive activities (Corno & Mandinach, 1983). Cognitive engagement and motivation are inextricably linked together through mental representations, monitoring, and evaluation of responses and strategic thinking. The amount of cognitive effort expended is an appropriate index of motivation as it relies on the learner focusing on mastering the learning task and maintaining a high sense of personal efficacy (Shunk, 1989).

The highest form of cognitive engagement is self-regulated learning (Corno & Mandinach, 1983), where learners plan and manage their own learning and have a high degree of personal control and autonomy. This is critical to beginning and ongoing motivation as students engage in specific cognitive activities that derive from the novelty of the learning environment that allows the students to establish different perspectives that relate back to their own world views.

This assumes that the students’ prior learning will act in concert with the instruction to determine the types of cognitive engagement they exhibit, such as attention to specific information, analysis and synthesis of information, visualisation and ability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. Effective cognitive engagement involves selectivity, task-specific planning, drawing on previous experience and transferring new knowledge to the world outside the classroom. The use of interactive multimedia can foster and develop cognitive engagement through its ability to attract and hold students’ attention and focus. The very attributes that provide the potential to develop cognitive engagement, however, are also those that hold strong prospects for limiting and impeding learning. Research into programs and applications which encourage self-regulation and learner control frequently reports problems associated with learners’ inability to successfully monitor and manage their learning, and to remain engaged and focussed on the learning tasks. Solutions that seek to enforce control or direction over learners help to encourage the focus but can stifle the freedom associated with the forms of cognitive processing and engagement associated with higher order learning.

This paper describes a study in which a multimedia program—developed for use in a university course in the business field—was implemented in controlled settings that enabled an exploration of the higher order learning processes of learners. The program, Principles of Financial Investment, was designed and developed to support and encourage independent and self-regulated learning. Deliberate aspects of the design included elements to motivate and engage adult learners, and past papers have explored and described

  • the instructional design principles guiding program development (Stoney & Oliver, 1998);
  • learner response to the various design elements, (Stoney & Oliver, 1998); and the forms of motivation and engagement among adult learners supported by the learning environment (Stoney & Oliver, 1998)


3. The Multimedia Program

A module in an introductory finance unit was targeted by the University as one where significant learning advantage could be achieved through appropriate use of IMM. This module involved teaching students about share valuation and investment. With conventional teaching, learning was achieved through reading and discussion. With an IMM program, significant learning advantages seemed likely through students learning by exploration and inquiry, in their own time and at their own pace.

3.1. Principles of Finance

The IMM program that replaced the conventional course was carefully designed to incorporate not only the learning sequences needed to bring about the cognitive outcomes but also to include a strong affective component.

The microworld consists of an office building called "Investment House." This has a reception area containing a help desk where students who do not enjoy browsing can receive varying degrees of hints regarding where to start and what paths to follow. Upon entering the building, students are asked to register at the desk. This allows the program to be personalised and also enables students to store their data on the main computer server or hard disk if necessary. If students try to move on without registering, a voiceover reminds them that this is a necessary step.

There is also a blueprint of the floorplan of the building showing the other organisations within the building. The four main working/operating areas are the stock exchange, a stock broker, the Institute of Sound Investment and the student’s office. Within these areas students can view the stock prices in a viewing room, and access their own portfolio summary from their office desk (Figure 1).

The nature of the interactions was also considered. The aim of the program was to maximise engagement and motivation, so a passive click and read type program was avoided. The interaction style was important, as it would support the narrative intention, enhancing the participant’s relationship with the product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View an introduction to the microworld (Lotus Screencam file, 2.43MB).

 

 

 

Figure 1. Viewing room of Stock Exchange showing current quarterly share prices; and portfolio summary from the student’s office desk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View a discussion of the nature of the interactions (Lotus Screencam file, 2.23MB).

View a discussion of the use of humour (Lotus Screencam file, 3.48MB).



4. The Study

The multimedia program was incorporated into the course of study for eight students studying Accounting at this university. The students were divided into dyads for the purpose of this study and used the program collaboratively. They worked in a self-regulated fashion to complete the learning activities supported by the program in controlled settings that enabled the researchers to observe their activities and to record their communication and interactions. The discourse of the students was transcribed and analysed to determine the forms and scope of cognitive engagement and to enable exploration of the higher order learning that occurred.

4.1. Findings

The resultant conversations revealed several levels of cognitive engagement and activity among the dyads. To further explore and analyse the instances of cognitive engagement, learning activities were categorised and identified in the dyad activities. In the following discussion, we have separated the analysis and discussion of the forms of talk and cognitive activity into sections that describe lower and higher order thinking and learning.

4.1.1. Lower Order Activity

Lower order activity can be identified as any operational tasks requiring more than mechanistic activities, needing almost no cognitive engagement, problem solving or decision making (Stoney, 1998). The students’ lower order activities were divided into three main sections—lower order talk, information seeking, mastery of procedures, and browsing. Table 1 provides an overview of the categories by which the lower order talk and thinking were identified (after Herrington, 1997):

Category

Sub-Category

Definition

Summary of student talk

Example of type

Procedural

Equipment

Any discussion regarding the hardware.

These comments related to the computer crashing.

M: Oh, the computer’s stuck. We’ll have to start again.

 

Software

Any discussion regarding the operation of the program or problems with the software.

There were very few comments of this nature, but one pair could see the desktop behind the program which caused one of them some difficulties.

K: Do you find it a bit disconcerting with all this behind it?

B: It is a bit, yeah

K: You’re trying to read it and there’s all the little bits.

 

Task

Any discussion regarding the requirements of the tasks.

This type of talk related to the ways in which the students decided to move through the program and the order of their tasks.

J: What do you reckon? Do you think we have to go back to the Institute?

Browsing

 

Any exchange where the students were talking about looking to see what was available.

There were very few incidences of this type of talk. The collaborating students did very little browsing.

S: Let’s have a quick look round first.

M: Good idea, see what’s here.

Lower Order

 

Any exchange which was of a routine nature, such as agreeing, commenting without applying thought or judgement.

Talk in this category included many routine comments about the task.

G: Tell you what this program really brings some concepts back.

Information Seeking

 

Any exchange where the students were actively seeking information, but were not making judgements about it.

Comments in this category were made when students decided to look for information provided to help them make the investment decisions. There were comparatively few comments in this area as most of the pairs worked out their own information.

M: Let’s check what the economic forecasts have to say about all this.

Off task activities are those that occur when the students lose engagement with the program. The off task activities noted in the study were caused by students being tired or listening to what other students were doing. The technology also caused some distraction from the program when it failed to operate as expected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Table 1. Summary chart of classification of talk by pairs

 

View a discussion of lower order thinking (Lotus Screencam file, 2.30MB).

 




Table 2 shows the percentage of time each pair spent in the lower order activities as defined above.

Pair Number

Procedural, equipment, s/ware, task

Browsing

Lower order talk

Information seeking

Total time in Lower order activities

1

10

1

18

3

32

2

22

1

16

9

48

3

15

3

25

7

50

4

10

4

25

13

52

By studying the four pairs of students, we noted that generally they spent very little time browsing. Instead they preferred to talk their way through the program and the problems. There was quite a high percentage of procedural talk, probably due to the fact that the program was a test version and had some minor glitches. These problems were all noted and rectified.

The percentage of time spent in information seeking was generally low, with the exception of pair 4, who spent more than 10% of their time in this activity. The incidence of lower order talk was much higher than expected. This could be attributed to the fact that the program was fairly complex and, therefore, students spent time reading aloud to each other, discussing routine factors such as where to go next and making comments that did not apply thought or judgement.

Although there were many instances where the lower order talk was intermingled with the higher order talk, generally most of the students spent the initial part of their time discussing procedures and actively seeking information before moving on to higher order thinking.

The initial high percentage of lower order talk by students using the program was not unexpected, as the students explored and experimented with the structure of the program. However, the incidence of lower order talk did drop away towards the middle and end of the time as students became more familiar with the structure and content of the program.

Although the amount of time spent in lower order activities varied between the dyad groups, they spent fairly similar amounts of time browsing. The main differences between the groups were information seeking (ranging from 3% to 13%), procedural issues (ranging from 10% to 22%), and lower order talk (ranging from 16% to 25%). The types of issues which contributed to the lower order activities were problems with the system, for example when one of the students was distracted by the desktop showing behind the program, or when the system crashed. Some of the students also found that they needed to be directed to the paper-based instructions, although they still tended to talk through their navigational problems rather than read a manual.

Much of the lower order activity involved routine talk, where students were agreeing, reading aloud, and commenting without judging. A much smaller percentage of the lower order activities involved information seeking where students were actively looking for information and discussing it without judging it.

Although much of the lower order talk was necessary in terms of the students working out how the program worked and commenting on incidents occurring in the program, some of the occurrences could have been eliminated by ensuring that the program was more stable. By increasing the problem-based learning, students would have had to engage in more higher order thinking, for example, the introduction of more random events would mean that more problems would develop in relation to the share prices and students would have to seek out solutions to these problems. Examples of this might be the discovery of a new drug that might affect the sales of the products from the biotechnology company, or the discovery of a new oil field , or the destruction of a microprocessor factory, creating a shortage of computer chips, which, in turn, would increase demand for the products of the computer technology company, improve their profits in the short term and affect their share prices.

4.1.2. Higher Order Thinking

An important facet of developing higher order thinking skills is the ability to reflect on the learning experience and incorporate new knowledge with pre-existing knowledge. Although the importance of reflection is well documented , it is rarely supported as it is internalised by the student often without the instructor being aware of the process (Laurillard, 1995). Teacher oriented classes provide the least amount of time for reflection, but self-paced, resource-based instruction, such as multimedia, is capable of promoting the links between conceptual and experiential learning. This can be achieved by building in a variety of scenarios that offer alternatives to students, giving them choices from which to change their understanding of a concept whilst being able to relate it to their own world. An example of this would be the fact that students are able to get the same information from a variety of sources, such as the telephone, television, on-line experts, the tutorials and the broker. In this way, students learn to sift the relevant from irrelevant information and can relate new information to real world situations. Students also showed that they were keen to draw upon their own experience and knowledge, by talking about topical events.

Traditional teaching often employs a lock-step approach to the acquisition of skills, with lower order skills being taught first. There is a belief that lower order skills are prerequisites to higher order skills and that mastery of lower order skills automatically leads to higher order skills. In fact, lower order and higher order skills can be taught concomitantly, with students mastering both levels as they apply their learning, rather than learning the skills, practicing and then applying them. This prevents skills from being learned in isolation and students having to relearn how to apply them to real world tasks. The students are active in the learning process, applying problem-solving in context which, in turn, aids in the acquisition of skills, giving the students a reason to learn and helping them to learn.

In the study described in this paper, higher order thinking was classified into five main categories: planning/strategy; uncertainty; predicting/imposing meaning; multiple perspectives; and coaching (Herrington, 1997). Table 3 gives a breakdown of the classification of the categories.


 

 

Table 2. Percentage of lower activities performed by each pair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View a discussion of changes (Lotus Screencam file, 2.75MB).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View a discussion of problems (Lotus Screencam file, 2.18MB).




Category

Definition

Example of student talk

Planning/ Strategy

Decision making , considering strategies and planning events.

"Yeah, well I reckon that Castle Mining is overvalued so why don't we check out what the broker has to say about that, and then maybe look at the quarterly reports to see if there's some sort of a trend?" (Steve talk).

Uncertainty

Any statement expressing uncertainty. Any question clarifying a point.

"One point one, where's the 12 come from, percent, where's the 16% come from? Don't know?" (Mark talk)

Predicting/ Imposing meaning

Making a prediction, deciding what to believe, solving non-routine problems , making judgements. Exploration of the problem, using inference, induction and deduction (Garrison, 1992).

"Net present value is the current value or adjusted value on the discounted cash flow rates, huh" (Gary talk)

Multiple perspectives

Establishing different perspectives. Grounding in the real world.

"I know, isn’t that interesting, Northern Queensland, Western Australia, Cuba. I didn’t know Cuba produced gold. I don’t know what to do with the market at the moment ‘cos you wouldn’t buy gold at the moment" (Kelly talk).

Coaching

Accessing hints help in the form of support, advice, and explanations. Students teaching each other the material.

"Yes D is probably whatever the figure that they say starting 6 years from now but its only 5periods working here but it must be in the backtrack of the 5 periods.."(Brad talk).


4.1.3. Incidences of Higher Order Thinking

Although three of the pairs spent half their time or more in higher order thinking, it was felt that more student time should have been spent in higher order thinking. Part of the reason for the lower than expected number of incidences could have been the fact that the program was very procedurally oriented and, therefore, there was a high incidence of lower order talk. Analysis of the time spent in each facet of higher order thinking highlights the fact that students did not allocate as much of their talk time to grounding their new knowledge with existing knowledge as had been expected. One pair also spent very little time in planning and strategic thinking, and another pair did not coach each other as much as the other three pairs.


Table 3. Summary chart of classification of higher order talk by pairs

 

View a discussion of strategy (Lotus Screencam file, 5.35MB).

View a discussion of personal interaction (Lotus Screencam file, 2.05MB).

View a discussion of coaching (Lotus Screencam file, 3.56MB).




Pair No

Planning/
Strategy

Uncertainty

Predicting/
Imposing Meaning

Multiple Perspectives

Coaching

Total time spent in HOT

1

12

8

36

8

4

68

2

12

4

26

5

5

52

3

19

8

21

1

1

50

4

4

15

21

2

6

48


Table 4. Percentage of time spent by pairs in Higher Order talk




Although the learners were crafting solutions to problems, leading to higher order talk, building more problems into the program would increase the levels of planning and strategic thinking.

The students’ talk gradually took on more higher order aspects as students became absorbed by the content and began planning their investment strategies. The degrees of higher order talk varied among the four dyads, as did the incidents that triggered it. These triggering events varied from relating real world events to the program’s events, relating new information back to old learning acquired in other units, judging new information and projecting outcomes of decisions. The incidence of coaching also occurred to various degrees, although only one pair utilised it in a very limited way.

The dyads tended to have fairly different examples of higher order talk, with Pair 4 doing very little planning/strategic thinking (2%) and Pair 3 doing 19%. On the other hand, Pair 4 spent quite a lot of time (15%) clarifying statements and 21% of their time predicting and imposing meaning. Pair 1 spent the longest percentage of time on prediction (36%) and also the longest percentage of time on establishing different perspectives (8%). Pair 4 spent the most time accessing the online support and help (6%) which is perhaps reflected in their monetary results and also some of their comments about their lack of comfort with the program theory.

A comparison of the time spent and totals profits accumulated with the degree of lower and higher order talk show a clear correlation. Pair 1, who had the highest percentage of higher order activities, made the most profit, and this correlation holds true for the other three dyads. It also holds true for the time spent in the program with the exception of Pair 2, who spent longer in the program than Pair 1 but made less money.




Pair Number

Lower Order Activities (%)

Higher Order Activities (%)

Time spent in program (minutes)

Total profit ($)

1

32

68

103

39,345

2

48

52

112

35,239

3

50

50

101

23,500

4

52

48

92

22,080


Table 5. Comparison of lower and higher order activities with time spent and total profits made

View a discussion of profits (Lotus Screencam file, 4.68MB).



5. Summary and Conclusions

It is clear from this study that the use of well designed interactive microworlds leads to learner cognitive engagement which, in turn, promotes greater degrees of concentration for longer periods of time. Further, a well-designed program will drive learners towards greater levels of higher order thinking which helps them achieve the implicit goals set by the program itself and explicit goals personally set by the learners.

The use of the game and its motivating and engaging factors created an environment that resulted in high levels of higher order thinking, through triggering events, such as phone calls, news broadcasts, economic forecasts, and stock market reports. The program provided information and data from various perspectives and sources and facilitated a real connection between that information and information and learning already possessed by learners. For example, the students had all learned about insider trading in their law and accounting classes, but all commented that by receiving the information and having to determine whether it was legal or not, highlighted the issues of insider trading as never before.

The program’s materials encouraged and, indeed, required, learners to judge and assess the credibility of potentially conflicting information, and to develop strategies to resolve those conflicts, to clarify issues, to solve problems, to experiment, to think strategically and critically, to sift information, to predict and impose meaning and to make judgements and decisions in spite of apparent contradictions. For example, when making share transaction decisions, students were given a great deal of information from a variety of sources. They were given historical data and future predictions for shares and sometimes these two sets of data did not match, forcing students to analyse, clarify, and synthesise the information. When deciding which shares to buy and how many, students had to calculate their worth and then determine how market forces would impact upon the share prices.

The materials within the program were written to be understandable, interesting and relevant, not isolated from reality, and attempted to link theory to practice by requiring the application of content. Students, then, were led to focus on the functional context of acquired knowledge through the integration of skills in an authentic and realistic manner and setting. In an attempt to minimise the level of lower order thinking, which requires, by definition, little sustained mental effort, the program was designed to reduce the level of operational mechanistic tasks and allowed easy flow, exploration and ready access to information. In order to further reduce the levels of lower order thinking, an increase in problem solving could be encouraged by providing an increased opportunity for reflection, providing cognitive scaffolds to move learners more quickly to levels of higher order thinking, and creating cognitive dissonance in both teaching materials and strategies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View a discussion of ethics (Lotus Screencam file, 3.08MB).

 

View a discussion of transactions (Lotus Screencam file, 3.26MB).

 

 

 

 

 

View a discussion of conclusions (Lotus Screencam file, 2.86MB).



6. References 

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Campione, J. C. (1996). Assisted assessment. In H. Daniels (Ed.), An introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 219-250). London: Routledge.

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Corno, L., & Mandinach, E. B. (1983). The role of cognitive engagement in classroom learning and motivation. Educational Psychologist, 18, 88-108.

Duchastel, P. C. (1990). Examining cognitive processing in hypermedia usage. Hypermedia, 2(3), 221-233.

Ennis, R. H. (1993). Critical thinking assessment. Theory into practice, 32(3), 179-186.

Garrison, D. R. (1992). Critical thinking and self-directed learning in adult education: an analysis of responsibility and control issues. Adult Education Quarterly, 42(3), 136-148.

Laurillard, D. (1995). Multimedia and the changing experience of the learner. British Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3), 179-189.

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Merriam, S. B. (Ed.). (1993). An Update on Adult Learning Theory. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Murphy, M. A., & Davidson, G. V. (1991). Computer-based adaptive instruction: Effects of learner control on concept learning. Journal of Computer-Based Instruction, 18(2), 51-56.

Resnick, L. B. (1987). Education and Learning to Think. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Russell, T. L. (1997). The "No significant difference" phenomenon as reported in 248 research reports, summaries and papers. Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina State University.

Shunk, D. (1989). Self-efficacy and cognitive skill learning. In C. Ames & R. Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education: Goals and cognitions (Vol. 3, pp. 13-44). San Diego: Academic Press, Inc.

Stoney, S., & Oliver, R. (1997). Making interactive multimedia appealing to adult learners. In T. Muldner & T. Reeves (Eds.), ED-MEDIA97 and ED-TELECOM 97. Calgary Alberta, Canada: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

Stoney, S., & Oliver, R. (1998). Interactive multimedia for adult learners: Can learning be fun? Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 9(1), 55-82.

Thornburg, D. D. (1991). Education, Technology and Paradigms of Change for the 21st Century. (2nd ed.): Starsong Publictions.

Winne, P. H., & Marx, R. W. (1989). Cognitive-processing analysis of motivation. In C. Ames & R. Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education: Goals and cognitions (Vol. 3, pp. 223-257). San Diego: Academic Press Inc.

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IMEJ multimedia team member assigned to this paper Daniel Pfeifer