Appropriate media choice for e-learning effectiveness: Role of learning domain and learning style

As the number of online education and training programs increase, researchers and practitioners are interested in investigating ways to design and develop effective e-learning programs. One of the major design decisions that affects learning effectiveness is the choice of media to present the contents of such programs. The prevailing tendency seems to be to use “richer” medium, in the progression from text to graphics to audio to video, for designing and developing e-learning programs. It is not clear, however, if a “richer” medium provides proportionately higher learning effectiveness. To investigate this gap in our understanding, we developed an integrated research model and tested it empirically. Our results showed that the relationship between media choice in an e-learning program and the effectiveness of that program is moderated by the learning domain of the program and the learning styles of learners.