There are two main streams in the recent researches on the learning with hypermedia; one is the development of the hypermedia learning material, and the other is the development of the instructional systems marked with usage of hypermedia. The latter is drived from the research on the media-mix design of the instructional systems, and in that reseach & development context we have proposed some sorts of unit models which consist of many kinds of media(hypermedia, TV, text, and so on). But these models are rough ones in the level of the activity flow. In this research project, in order to develop the detail design of the instructional systems with hypermedia, we have described, analyzed and evaluated the lesson in which children worked with the hypermedia learning materials. We have designed a unit of the instructional system marked with the usage of hypermedia learning material "Man & Forest," and practiced it in the class of the 5th grade students in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Pref., in 1991. They were divided into 5 groups and each group learned about the deforestation and reforestation using that material. It took 60 minutes. Our data collection methods are as follows: (1)For the purpose of clarifying the premises of the design; We checked the children's understanding of forests with the achievement test before the units started. We also interviewed the teacher about the children's personality. In addition, we described the lesson in detail by the participant observation. (2)To examine the effect of the learning with the hypermedia learning material; We have analyzed the sheets in which children wrote what they had learned with the material. From the result, we have proposed some design rules of the instructional systems with hypermedia as the multimedia database; (1)There are a few premises for using the hypermedia learning material; small-group activity and children's free access to the material for collecting the cases. (2)The important points that we have to consider when we design the instructional systems are organizing groups of different kinds of members, assigning enough time for children to use the hypermedia learning material and presenting the sub-material as the learning model.

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The number of students who are going to get the higher education has been increasing in this country. The fundamental study in 1993 by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture informed us that 34.5% of eighteen-year-old people are in the higher education and 2,920,000 students were in colleges and universities in 1993. Because of this fact, college teachers and professors are urged to investigate the educational technology to teach effectively students who have various kinds of abilities and interests. Besides, practical abilities in education to meet the recent cultural changes, and wide fundamental knowledge are requested to students who want to be school teachers in the future. These facts are seem not only in Japan but also in world-wide. In our study, considering trend of the time, we are going to make clear the educational effects of visual materials through reactions of students who used and watched them. In those visual materials, educational practices are recorded for the purpose of improving their educational abilities. This report is trying to show the universal effect of visual materials for improving students' abilities in educational practical field, surpassing their experiences or their specialized fields. Along this object, we comparatively studied reactions of students in physical course and technological course, on watching the same visual material. The result of this study gives us a very good and clear direction in the usage of visual materials in teacher training in the near future. It is said that educational effects of visual materials would depend upon attributions of materials and conditions of students and teachers. Through our study, however, we certainly found that visual materials bring forth the wide educational effects irrespective of students' attributions, learning conditions or instructional conditions, on our comparative research for reactions of two kinds of students, such as physical course and in technology course.

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In order to clarify the learning effects of pictures, some experiments have been conducted by the author. The results of the experiments showed that pictures, particulary photographs, helped reading comprehension of L2 English and that presenting pictures after reading English prose was more effective than presenting them before reading it. It was also found that a color picture did not improve reading comprehension of learneres. Based on the results of previous experiments, a variable of graphic devices, namely, an arrow, an underline or both them, was introduced in this study, since graphic devices can be most easily added to instructional materials, such as textbooks or courseware of L2 English language. The purpose of this study was to investigate if graphic devices in a picture (i.e. an arrow, an underline, and both of them) could enhance learning effects of reading English prose or not. As an instructional material, the prose passage, "A Strange Shopping Center" was selected from an English textbook for junior high school students. The passage consisted of about 300 words. One picture was chosen and three different types of pictures, namely a picture with an arrow, one with an underline and one with both an arrow and an underline. These cues marked the part of the picture that was considered to be important in relation to the content of the prose. The experiment was conducted in July of 1992 with 145 junior high school students in Niigata Prefecture, who were divided into four groups that were to use four differents types of learning materials, consisting of the three types of materials mentioned above, and the other was a picture which did not have any cue. As a pretest, the scores of a standardized test obtained from the junior high school were used. In the experiment, students read the passage and then looked at the picture. After this, they completed a posttest, which was actually a comprehension test. It included twelve factual questions and eight inferential questions. The subjects filled out a questionnaire with 15 items. About one week later, the subjects were given a retention test, the items of which were the same as those on the posttest, although they were presented in random order. First of all, ANOVA was conducted on the points of the pretest and no significant difference was found. Secondly, ANOVA was applied to the results of the posttest. The results proved that the main effect of cueing was significant in inferential questions. Thirdly, ANOVA was conducted on the results of thr retention test. The results showed that there were no significant differences both in factual and inferential items. Finally, the results of the questionnaire were analyzed using a chi-square test. The results showed that an arrow or an underline made subjects feel the questions more difficult and that learners using the material with both types of cueing showed most favorable attitudes toward each type of cueing. Based of these results, it was found that an arrow could improve reading comprehension, particularly inferential questions, and that it would be most desirable to add an arrow as a graphic device to a picture.

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The present study examines the design principles of a simulated experience type software in a Hypermedia learning environment which supports the acquisition of investigating skills by children and help them integrate various kinds of information stored in files. This learning program deals with the road safety education for the 4th grade social studies. A prototype version of the software was made to refine design principles. The Hypermedia learning program was then developed and implemented in an eight-hour instructional unit. The main principles are a)parallel display of different modalities of information on the monitor, b)simulated experience of investigation in the school district, c)nonlinear network of information files. The design principles of the instructional unit also were clarified in accord with the software design. It has three main stages; a)watching a TV program, b)simulated experience of investigation using Hypermedia, c)a real world research activity for data on traffic accidents around the school.

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"Communication" is a key word in language teaching pedagogy. To have learners acquire communication skills, five features are selected and integrated into an English language courseware. The five features are (1)student-centered learning, (2)"fun learning" (learning while enjoying their tasks), (3)simulating actual conversation, (4)aiming at listening skills, and (5)understanding American culture. In order to attain these features, the couseware is designed taking into consideration the following: 1. The courseware is made similar to role playing games such as produced by Nintendo games. 2. Learners have to learn basic skills needed for communication, for traveling in the U.S.A., and for information gathering. 3. All the conversation is aurally presented including sentences selected by the learners. 4. The courseware has a multi-line, multi-node story. 5. The courseware has a navigation capability which enable the learner to move around in the story. 6. The courseware uses a situational syllabus. 7. Although the courseware works as basically a conversation simulator, it also has drill sections. 8. The courseware has an indicator which enables the learners to follow progress. 9. The courseware has three help functions. Although the students who used this courseware had favorable to it in general, this courseware needs further improvements. Second feature was found out to be a very important factor. Further research will clarify the elements which attracts students by using multimedia courseware.

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