The effects of hypertext in a multimedia environment on the achievements in Judaic studies of elementary and junior high school students

Abstract

The accelerated technological development encompassing our world in every walk of life demands the attention of education professionals as to the ramifications and the effects of this development on the educational system and on teaching activities.;The new technologies---computer and computer communication technologies---significantly affect the process of transmission and reception of messages. In contrast to the transmission of messages in the "literary society" in which the text serves as a central means of transmission, in the information society, the computer and computer communications systems have become increasingly prevalent in serving as transmission channels. While text calls for a mainly rational treatment through the extensive use of cognitive decoding methods, the new technologies address most of the senses, in addition to the rational treatment, and enable reception of messages through the use of a variety of decoding tools.;On 2002 we conducted a study aimed at investigating the impact of learning using hypertexts in a multimedia environment upon the students' scholastic achievements. The study was implemented with pre-adolescents and adolescents who are in the transitional developmental stage from "concrete" to "formal" thinking and in the "formal" thinking stages. The study compared the learning achievements of the fourth grade students with those of the eighth grade students. Our assumptions were: Both fourth grade students and eighth grade students, at all functionality parameters, will exhibit higher scores in three cognitive parameters (a) knowledge, (b) comprehension and (c) elaboration learned using hypertext in a multimedia environment than by conventional learning methods. Our question was: does the gender variable generate significant differences, with respect to the performance efficiency of learning with hypertext in a multimedia environment?;In order to test our assumptions 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVA analyses were made with repeated measures per session. These analyses were made for the subject's general test score as well as for the three measures of each set of questions--- knowledge, comprehension, and elaboration parameter. We did find the achievements brought about through PC-aided learning were higher in all parameters. We also found that in grade eight the boys did better than girls, while in grade four the girls did better.