Exploring Students’ Creativity and Design Skills through a Multimedia Project: A Constructivist approach in a Malaysian classroom

Abstract

Research has shown that students have graduated from institutions of higher learning with a lack of creativity and critical-thinking thinking skills. This mismatch in skills has resulted in a nationwide initiative in using technology in the classroom to create a learning environment that would stimulate students’ creative and problem-solving process, and to cultivate an engaging and media-rich design
learning process. In this paper, we explored the use of constructivist learning principles within a multimedia design course on students’ creative and critical-thinking skills, via the design of a multimedia project. The project design and development required group collaboration and the enabling of students to document their design process throughout the trimester in webpages and project reports. The results of the study showed that student teams were able to create innovative and engaging applications and were able to document critical-thinking processes throughout their project development. Motivation, teamwork and collaboration, and increased understanding, were key components of this learning environment and multimedia technology was an enabler for them to become creative and critical in their thinking, thus increasing their engagement in the classroom. The constructivist learning principles used in the study also showed positive results as a pedagogical framework for creating engaging learning environments for students.