The effects of online courses with multimedia in learners\u27 perceived satisfaction and effectiveness of e-learning.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine how the use of multimedia components, such as graphics, audio and video, in online courses was related to perceived learner satisfaction and learning effectiveness. The use of retrospective data provided self reported perceived satisfaction measures and total score representing objective performance in an online course. Data represented employees of a large multinational, publicly traded healthcare company (N = 2401) during the 2012 calendar year. The independent variables were: (a) learner perceived satisfaction with the use of graphics, (b) learner perceived satisfaction with the use of audio, (c) learner perceived satisfaction with the use of narration properly synchronized with text animation, (d) learner perceived satisfaction with the use of video, and (e) reason for enrolling in the online course. The dependent variable was leamer\u27s objective performance score. Correlations and hierarchical logistic regression were performed on the data. Major findings include (a) a low relation between learners\u27 perceived satisfaction with the use of graphics and objective performance, (b) a relation between combined learners\u27 perceived satisfaction with the use of audio, learners\u27 perceived satisfaction with the use of narration properly synchronized with text animation, and learners\u27 perceived satisfaction with the use of video and learners\u27 objective performance (r2 = .001,p \u3c .05), and (c) reason for enrolling in the online course did not predict learners\u27 objective performance. The study presented additional conclusions and implications for theory, research, and practice