The Effectiveness of Educational Applications: Two Small Empirical Investigations

ICT is thought to be successful in helping students to learn more deeply and actively. Despite its popularity, evidence as to its effectiveness is undergoing increased scrutiny. This article reports on the empirical investigation of the implementation of two interactive animations. Questionnaires measured students’ learning styles, ICT competence and students’ impressions of the animations. In Study I, medical students were matched-paired into experimental and control groups, and their performance was compared by a short written test. In Study II, physiotherapy students were arranged into two pre-existing groups. The results in Study I showed that there was no statistical difference between the control and experimental groups. A positive trend was found between deep processing and general test score. Also statistical significance was found between deep processing and three-dimensional perception. In Study II, the two groups performed equally on a final exam, but the experimental group scored significantly higher on a specially constructed question to test the effect of the animation. Further, Lack of Regulation had a negative effect on the scores of a final exam. The fundamental result of these small studies was that of deep learning and a lack of constructive regulative study patterns being more relevant for the learning tasks than the interactive applications themselves. This has implications for teachers who should explore alternative teaching strategies to promote deep learning.