An analysis of branching behaviour patterns in an interactive hypermedia learning environment

Students’ branching behaviours and how these behaviours relate to learner variables, such as prior knowledge, and demographic variables, were examined. Fourteen subjects were asked to learn a hypermedia instructional director system, MAPLE (Multimedia Authoring and Production Learning Environment). The results showed students differ in their branching behaviours and learning characteristics: individual differences in branching behaviour patterns were related to prior domain knowledge of director. High prior knowledge students tended to employ the branching behaviour pattern, moving linearly; low prior knowledge students tended to employ branching behaviour pattern, moving forward and backward; medium prior knowledge students tended to employ branching behaviour pattern, skipping sub‐sections. Other prior knowledge variables, and learner variables were unrelated to students’ branching behaviour patterns.