Analysis of students' perceptual styles and their use of multimedia

The relationships between students' perceptual styles (field independence-dependence-neutral) and the students' preferences for visual images as well as written text and narrative sound within a multimedia lesson have been studied. Of particular importance was the students' study time (minutes) among three media. 70 students of historic costume completed the Group Embedded Figures Test and a multimedia lesson distinguishing costumes of 1875, 1880, and 1885. Significantly more time was spent studying both visual images and written text than in listening to narrative sound; however, visual images were selected significantly more often than text or sound, in that order. Subjects chose and studied detailed fashion illustrations significantly more than the simplified line drawings and significantly increased their knowledge about costumes of 1875 to 1885. No association of students' perceptual style with any assessment procedure was noted.