The Effects of Three Browsing Devices on Learner Structural Knowledge, Achievement, and Perceived Disorientation in a Hierarchically Organized Hypermedia Environment

237 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994.The purpose of this study was to assess the relative effects of three different browsing devices on learner structural knowledge, achievement, and perceived disorientation in a hierarchically organized hypermedia system. For this investigation, a Completely Randomized Factorial-322 experimental design was employed. The two independent variables chosen for this study were browsing device (i.e., hotwords, spider maps, and hierarchical maps) and post-treatment lesson structure task awareness (i.e., aware and unaware). The three dependent variables were structural knowledge (as measured by the learner's ability to construct a pencil and paper representation of the organization of the major concepts in the lesson), achievement (as measured by the learner's ability to recall detailed information from the text of the lesson), and perceived disorientation (as measured by the Non-Linear Text Disorientation Assessment). The three nuisance variables identified for this study were concept mapping knowledge and use (i.e., has learned to use concept maps and uses them, has learned to use concept maps but does not use them, and has not learned to use concept maps), hypermedia experience (i.e., experienced and inexperienced), and gender (i.e., male and female). Sixty-one subjects participated in the study.The results of the study led to the following conclusions: (1) When a learner's attention is at least partially focused on the structural aspects of a hypermedia lesson, structural knowledge acquisition will improve. (2) When a learner is cognizant of the fact that he or she must learn both the detailed information in a hypermedia lesson as well as the structural aspects of it, detail knowledge acquisition will not necessarily suffer. (3) The inclusion of hierarchical concept maps in a hypermedia system that is organized hierarchically will diminish feelings of disorientation in a learner. (4) The inclusion of spider concept maps in a hypermedia system that is organized hierarchically will not reduce feelings of disorientation in a learner and may even increase feelings of disorientation. (5) As feelings of disorientation in a learner increase, structural knowledge acquisition will decrease.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD