Designing multimedia instruction in dentistry: need for sequencing model

When designing any piece of instruction, multimedia or other, the designer must answer two important issues: (i) how the instructional events should be sequenced over time (sequencing); (ii) how the interrelationships among these ideas should be taught to the students (synthesis). Two fundamental levels of instructional design strategies have been identified to provide sequence and synthesis: ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ strategies. Instructional designers use macro strategies to structure a number of different content ideas. Macro strategies are concerned with the organisation of memory. Many of the prescriptions about sequencing are at the macro level. Some of the well‐known sequencing strategies are: spiral curriculum; progressive differentiation; hierarchical sequencing; shortest path sequencing and elaboration sequencing. When using the multimedia environment as a learning tool, are these four basic macro strategies effective in providing sequence and synthesis of theoretical as well as clinical knowledge for dental students? Or is there a need to create a new clinical macro‐sequencing model for instructional multimedia programs in dentistry? We concluded that further research is needed on the methods, strategies and models that induce a cognitive process when adopting a computer‐assisted learning approach. A possible approach will be discussed .