Evaluating the effects of integrated visual elements in hypermedia learning: A domain expertise approach

Hypermedia learning is becoming a common and effective method of learning at colleges and universities. Nevertheless, there remains deep research on prior knowledge of the subject topic and its effects on learning outcomes, attitudes, and perceptions in a hypermedia learning environment. This paper presents a study that examines the effects of integrating visual elements in web screen design on the navigation behaviour, perceptions, and learning performance of subjects with and without domain expertise. Visual elements are those visible elements and visible user interface elements of the screen design in human-computer interaction that provide navigation and orientation aids to users of hypermedia learning systems. The participants for this study were 60 students from different universities across the UK. The results showed that high domain knowledge students outperformed low domain knowledge students in both the post-test and the practical task. However, low domain knowledge students learned more from the tutorial than high domain knowledge students. Also, different levels of domain knowledge, with experts and novices, require different visual elements for navigation. The findings also show that low domain knowledge students navigate as effectively as high domain knowledge students. Different attitudes and perceptions from the questionnaire surveys were also collected. It was also found that, in contrast to high domain knowledge students, low domain knowledge students depend a lot on some of the visual elements to escape from disorientation. The implications of these results are further discussed in this paper.