Impact of Multimedia Instructional Materials on Creative Thinking

This study aimed to investigate the impact of utilising multimedia instructional materials (MIM) on engineering students’ creative thinking in Malaysia. Fifteen MIM were developed based on the principles of Cognitive Theories of Multimedia Design (Mayer, 2001) and Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller et al., 1998). The MIM were used by 27 mechanical engineering students in lab sessions over a period of 5 weeks. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) verbal forms A and B were administered to the students as pretest and posttest respectively to measure students’ creative thinking in terms of fluency, flexibility, originality, and overall creativity capabilities. Two semi-structured focus group interviews were also conducted with five volunteer students in each group. Data were analysed using a paired sample t-test comparing pre and posttests results and also between genders. The t-test analysis shows that there was a significant increase in the students’ creative thinking in the posttest for all the creative thinking elements stated. Students’ responses during the interview supported the statistical findings.