The nature of students' sociocognitive activity in handling and processingmultimedia-based science material in a small group learning task

This paper describes a case study that investigated students' sociocognitiv e processes in a multimedia-based science learning task. By focusing on stu dents' discursive, cognitive and collaborative activity on a micro analytic level, the study describes the nature of students' strategic activity and social interaction whilst handling and processing information from a multim edia CD-ROM science encyclopaedia. The participants in the study were eight een 12-year-old students from one Finnish elementary classroom working indi vidually and in dyads on a poster task. The research data consist of video and audio recordings, on-line observations, interviews, questionnaires, and assessments of students' poster displays. In addition to cross-analyses of the whole data sample, the results of the study are highlighted via three case-based analytic descriptions characterising the nature of students' nav igation processes, social interaction and cognitive activity in the multime dia context. The results of the study reveal different strategies for infor mation handling and processing with multimedia. The nature of the students' activity show, however, that the cognitive strategies the students used in processing and handling multimedia-based science material and the nature o f social interactions in which they engaged were rather procedural and prod uct-oriented in nature. This was also reflected in the students' poster dis plays indicating rather superficial and incoherent conceptual representatio ns. The study indicates on the whole that more attention has to be paid to the design of instructional situations and pedagogical supports for multime dia-based learning.