ABSTRACT
Every new medium that has been “invented” seems to also have been touted as being a revolutionary educational change-maker. With the introduction of each new medium, people in and around education expected that each would revolutionise education, lead to amazing improvements in learning performance, and unalterably change the world of the teacher. Research showing performance or time-saving gains from one or another medium is shown to be vulnerable to compelling rival hypotheses concerning the uncontrolled effects of instructional method and novelty. Richard Clark called research media comparison studies: researchers compared one group that was taught with the new medium to another group that was offered the same material in a “regular” way. Clark explains that scientific journals want the most notable studies which make the scientific evidence for media effects appear larger than it actually is. Research showing no differences or even the reverse is often shunned by journals.
