Multimedia in Education: What do the Students Think?

Purpose: Multimedia is considered a cost effective and practical learning medium. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of medical and allied healthcare students towards the use of various multimedia learning aids and explored students’ attitudes towards these learning aids. Method: An online questionnaire was used to collect data. Students were invited to partake in the study via email and data was collected over a six-month period. Results: A total of 153 students responded to the survey. The data shows that students have had a positive experience using devices like smartphones (88.88%, n = 136) and laptops (89.19%, n = 132). Students are confident searching for multimedia resources (76.31%, n = 116), and have some familiarity or exposure to multimedia as part of their learning experience. Students preferred traditional teaching methods to learning with multimedia (58.59%, n = 75), but regarded multimedia as an effective and efficient tool for practical learning (73.02%, n = 111). The participants reported using e-learning tools and 2D animations more frequently than other multimedia tools and reported being least familiar with Augmented Reality and 3D websites. Finally, students expressed an interest in the development of 3D animations (66.66%, n = 80), interactive 3D teaching tools (65.45%, n = 72), and simulators (64.07%, n = 66) to complement their future studies. Conclusion: The results of the study show that participants acknowledged the important role of multimedia as a practical learning tool that can greatly complement and enhance the traditional teaching methods but cannot replace them. Medical and healthcare students expressed a particular interest in the development of interactive tools including simulators to supplement their studies and enhance the learning process.