Effect of assertion headings and expandable examples in an online engineering textbook

Many engineering courses are transitioning from traditional paper textbooks to online and multimedia instructional modules to present content to students outside of class time. As the use of these online resources expands, research about the effective use and production of these resources should grow in tandem. We study the effect of three different educational interventions: expandable worked examples, assertion headings, and hand-drawn figures on students´ learning and affective responses in online instructional texts for an introductory electrical engineering course. Although measures of students´ performance on technical content showed few significant changes, affective measures of student course satisfaction with the materials had improved.