The primary role of media is to facilitate learning whether in a traditional classroom setting or in situations involving e-learning, corporate communication, or the integration of advanced technologies (Richey, Klein, & Tracey, 2011).  The majority of media selection models describe a process of matching media attributes to a particular need and generally make reference to five essential factors: instructional content, learner characteristics, instructional strategies, environment, and management.

(1) Content – Many media selection models specify the instructional content within the context of behavioral objectives which are then classified by categories of learning task.  For instance, Gagné (1985) classifies learning tasks according different types of human capabilities and then uses the outcomes as the basis for identifying various instructional conditions.  In other models, selection of media relates closely to learning objectives and learning strategies (Department of the Air Force, 1979).

(2) Learner characteristics – To be successful, selection of appropriate media also needs to account for the nature of the learner.  Some of the learner characteristics to consider as part of the media selection process include attention span and motivation (Romiszowski, 1981), whether the learners are readers or nonreaders (Reiser and Gagné, 1983), learner age (Gagné, 1985), and learner confidence in using technology (Huddlestone and Pike, 2008).

(3) Instructional strategies – In the literature, there are at least six different ways in which instructional strategies have influenced media selection decisions:

  1. Individualized instruction is ideal. Many early media selection models emphasized this orientation (Richey et al., 2011).
  2. There are separate media decision paths: one for individualized and one for grouped instruction (Reiser and Gagné, 1983).
  3. The function of the learning task or instructional strategies (i.e., presentation, practice, or feedback) determines media selection (Department of the Air Force, 1979).
  4. One needs to consider the capability of the medium (Kemp, 1985).
  5. Each instructional strategy is one of Gagné’s Events of Instruction (Huddlestone and Pike, 2008).
  6. The type of interaction required determines media selection. For instance, Caladine (2008) discusses “interaction with materials, interaction between learners, and interaction with the facilitator”.

(4) Environment – The contextual environment includes such factors as group size (Leshin, Pollack, and Reigeluth, 1992), availability of resources, adaptability of an environment to certain media, whether conditions within the environment allow for “acceptable operation of the medium” (Romiszowski, 1981).  In addition, the instructional setting can limit the choice of media (Gagné, 1985).  For instance, the radio is still uniquely applicable to “in the car” learning, whereas using the Internet to learn within the same context is highly unacceptable.

(5) Management – Finally, media selection decisions need to consider various management issues pertaining to effective media usage.  The most notable issues include cost effectiveness of the medium (Reiser and Gagné, 1983; Huddlestone and Pike, 2008), “storage considerations, technical support, teacher training requirements” and general disruption from medium usage (Gagné, Briggs, & Wagner, 1992, as cited in Richey et al., 2011).

Recent Trends:

Huddleston and Pike Model (2008) – In this model, the learning task is the primary factor that shapes the process (Richey et al., 2011) and the learning context consists of the delivery context, support and maintenance, and design and development of instruction.  In addition, the designer chooses media based on the attributes that best support the transmission of information and group interactions, instruction can be group-based or individualized.  In terms of interactions, the designer needs to consider whether the learners are co-located and whether the learning experience is synchronous or asynchronous.

Caladine Technology Selection Method (2008) – In this model for flexible learning, media systems are necessary for managing interactions (Richey et al., 2011).  The key emphasis is this model is the combination of learning activities and learning technologies, technologies which are either representational with one-way interaction between the learner and the materials or collaborative with two-way interaction between the learner and other learners or between the learner and the facilitator.

To conclude, in response to Clark’s (1983) argument against specific learning benefits within a particular medium, Kozma (1991) argues that “media are distinguished by cognitively relevant characteristics of their technologies, symbol systems, and processing capabilities” and that it is the characteristics of the media as well as the instructional designs that employ them that influence “the structure, formation, and modification of mental models that lead to effective learning.”  In light of this, our media selection decisions also need to take into account any cognitively relevant characteristics within the various media we are considering for our ID projects.