The students' point of view about quality of educational multimedia software

Abstract

The study reported here is part of an international project supported by EU (PEDACTICE - Educational Multimedia in Compulsory School: From Pedagogical Assessment to Product Assessment8) and had as main goal to know the opinion and the perception of the Portuguese students about criteria of quality of educational multimedia software. In order to obtain elements on the student`s point of view about educational multimedia software, we decided to interview small groups of pupils who are involved in the work with multimedia materials and than gather, organize and analyse the information got. The sample of interviewed pupils can be considered as representative of the Lisbon schools attended by teachers and pupils very much interested in multimedia materials which these students use not only as an aid to learning activities but also as a support to home and school work.  As main results of the study we can refer: a) the confirmation of the success of computers and multimedia among the young Portuguese student population, being manifest either in their attitudes or in the diversity of their experiences, including the technical mastery of informatics; b) the acknowledgment, by the students, of the role of the school and of those of their teachers who had till now led  the process; c) an unexpected emphasis attached by the students, mainly by the older ones, to  the use of computer as a resource for school work which, till now, was done without it; and d) the rare use of the computer for supporting tasks of creative or autonomous nature.