1. Introduction
Multimedia courseware is popular nowadays as a teaching and learning tool. Therefore, the number of
multimedia courseware developed to assist teaching and learning activities has increased tremendously. Most
researchers seem to agree that multimedia elements in a courseware will hold an important role in teaching and
learning. Courseware that consists of multimedia elements is seen as an alternative way to facilitate educators in attracting students in teaching subjects that involved theoretical concepts. Multimedia is defined as the combination
of various digital media types, such as text, images, sound, and video, into an integrated multisensory interactive
application or presentation to convey a message or information to an audience (Neo & Neo, 2001). Multimedia
learning systems consist of animation and narration, which offer a potentially venue for improving student
understanding (Mayer & Moreno, 2000).
A preliminary study was carried out to find if problems occurred in learning the History and Basic Concepts of
Information topic using the conventional teaching and learning methods in UiTM Sarawak. Topic that has been
selected is on the theoretical aspects of information management in which difficult to understand and visualize. The
main teaching and learning material is based on the textbook and it is designed as the sole source of information,
whereby the students could only see single perspective on a history and basic concept of information. An interview
was conducted with 44 students of Diploma in Information Management program, who had taken the subject in their
previous semester. Based on the interview, several problems had been found. From the interview, 23 out of 44
students were not satisfied with the conventional teaching and learning methods using lectures and discussions
based on the notes. Most of the students were identified as having difficulties in visualizing and understanding the
concepts in the topic. 15 students also find that the conventional teaching methods were not interesting at all.
Hence, there arises a need to diversify the conventional teaching and learning methods. One of the ways is to use
multimedia courseware in the classrooms to further enhance the teaching and learning for the subject content that
need to be visualized.