INTEGRATING MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY AND LEARNING STYLES: A PROPOSED THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The use of Information and Communication Technologies in the education process has changed the way teaching and learning is performed. E-learning technological advancements allow the use of different media i.e. text, picture, audio, animation and video to create multimedia instructional material. Using technology to present online learning material has proved to contribute to the improvement of the learner’s performance. Indeed, more complex concepts require better use of media presentation. Media rich content can assist students to learn concepts that are difficult to be explained using only text. At the same time participating in an e-learning course requires a high level of self-discipline or self-direction. E-learning minimizes, especially in the asynchronous mode, the level of contact between learners and instructor and among learners. As a result e-learning is argued to be less efficient when compared to face-to-face teaching, requiring learners to dedicate more time to learn the subject. However, learning performance does not solely depend on the use of rich media. An important dimension is also the learning style of each user. Therefore, in order to study learning performance both dimensions need be taken into consideration and this is the subject matter of this paper. In particular, based on a thorough literature review, we explore the role of Media Richness Theory (MRT) and user learning styles in an e-learning system and propose a theoretical framework that integrates the two components. This framework contributes to the ongoing research debate of how media can be used effectively in order to increase learning performance.