Interactive Multimedia to Facilitate Employment of Adolescents

The U.S. Department of Education has identified the need for new technologies for enhancing career placement and career maintenance skills of individuals with disabilities. In response to this need, American Research Corporation of Virginia proposes the development and evaluation of interactive multimedia for diffusion of job matching and searching strategies to adolescents with disabilities in grades 9-12. Interactive multimedia is the integration of text, graphics, and audiovisual media with computer-based information retrieval techniques to enable a user to view information in a nonlinear, intuitive manner. Phase I technical objectives include development of instructional content and scripts for video portions of the program, integration of the content with multimedia presentation technology, and evaluation of the Phase I system with regard to usability and knowledge gain. The Phase I target population will be teens with learning disabilities; in Phase II, the target population will be teens with other disabilities, such as hearing, visual, orthopedic, health, and speech impairments. Phase II evaluation will entail assessment of changes in knowledge, attitudes, and career outcomes with regard to more traditional methods of instruction.