This paper examines the design and implementation of a multimedia learning environment (MLE) targeted at safety in an oil and gas multinational company in Australia. Since its development in 2004, the MLE has been used in over 1000 inductions. Designed according to contemporary research on facilitating meaningful learning (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1999), the MLE seeks to engage learners in real-life activities, includes upfront assessment, and offers a range of learning pathways. The paper examines how the MLE was received by the company and its target audience. Central to the paper is an exploration of the tensions between facilitating deep understandings and ensuring that time-poor learners attain the competencies required.

The design of the MLE recognizes that knowledge is not simply absorbed by an individual, nor can it be transferred from one person to another. Rather, individuals actively construct personally meaningful understandings as they interpret and ascribe meaning to their experiences (Piaget, 1963; Resnick, 1981; Shuell, 1986). This paper discusses the extent to which the implementation of the MLE has facilitated learning within time and cost constraints, with a view to informing future design and implementation practices.

While the MLE was designed with contemporary principles of meaningful learning, it could be argued that the competency-oriented focus of a workplace is not in keeping with more complex, multifaceted, transferable and life-long learning goals of post-compulsory education. Effective learning, for this MLE, is determined by the extent to which learners attain competency quickly and develop uncomplicated understandings about workplace safety. This dilemma underpins the core research question that guided the study: to what extent is an MLE, built according to contemporary learning theory, appropriate for a multinational workplace?

There is a need for evidence-based research to inform educational practice (Harper, Hedberg, Bennett & Lockyer, 2000; Pittard, 2004). Such research may be of use to trainers, teachers and managers of education as they grapple with how to best use multimedia to meet learning objectives. This research adopts a qualitative and longitudinal method including interview and observation in 2004 and follow up interviews in 2008. The MLE assumes that construction of knowledge occurs when learning activities, learning resources and learning supports are combined to facilitate the learning process (Oliver, 2001). Findings suggest that some of these principles are more valued than others in the implementation of this MLE. The paper explores why this is so, and the consequences that resulted.

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