The survey was consisted of two parts: Likert-scale questions and open-ended questions. A total of 913 students (out of 1066 students, response rate being 86%) replied the surveys over the four years in the twelve different classes.
For the focus-group interviews, an invitation was sent to all students who took the course in the academic year 2009–2010 (Stage 1). Participation was voluntary. A total of 12 students accepted the invitation and three focus-group meetings was held in May and June 2010. They were students from three disciplines: Human Biology (6 students), Chinese Medicine (5 students) and Nursing (1 student). A list of simple interview questions (protocol) was prepared to guide the interviews. They were about students’ perceived effectiveness of using animation to learn, choice of animations or text for study, and suggestions for improvements. A list of simple interview questions were prepared for the interview, they were about students’ perceived effectiveness of using animation to learn, choice of different learning media, the improvements of the animation(s) they wished, and other opinions. These questions were guiding questions for the interviewers rather than rigid prescribed structure of the interviews. The interview was taken in a natural approach that students were encouraged to comment freely on the use of the four animations for learning the topics, and suggest what could be improved in the animations. The students attended our interview at three different times (Table 3).