In recent years the fundamental question that receives an increasing amount of research attention, is not whether media affects learning but how to take advantage of the various media so that instructions and learning can be more effective, as Kozma and his advocates stated (Samaras, 2006).
In this context, the aim of this research was to determine whether the use of specific types of visualization (3D illustration, 3D animation and interactive 3D animation) combined with narration and text, contributes to the learning process of 17 and 18 years-old students in science courses. The study was carried out in Greece in a sample of 114 students of 12th grade. This exploratory study utilized three different versions of an interactive multimedia application called “Atomic Orbitals”, each one differing from the other two in a type of visuals. All the rest of the application components (narration, text, navigation, auxiliary tools, interface, etc.) were common in all three versions. This multimedia application was produced from scratch, based on the latest educationally acceptable theories and researches in various multimedia visualizations. In the last part of the multimedia application students were asked to answer questions of various types. The percentage of correct answers was recorded and presented at the end of the multimedia application. The questions in all three versions ware precisely the same and were presented in the same way.

During the execution of the multimedia application three files were stored in the computer’s hard disk. In the first file the results of the evaluation test were registered. In the second file, the time that each user spends in each screen of the multimedia application as well as the number of visits in the same scene were registered. Similarly, in the third file the time that each user needs to answer each question was recorded. These three files were stored as text-files (*.txt) and then were imported in an Excel spreadsheet. Therefore, from these files the following information can be extracted:

• The percentage of correct answers per student.
• The questions that were answered correctly by each student.
• The time that each student used to answer each question.
• The total time that each student had dedicated in the question part of the multimedia application.
• The number of times each student had visited every question.
• The time that each student had dedicated in each scene of the multimedia application.
• The number of times each student had visited each scene.
• The total time each student had dedicated in the scenes of the multimedia application, apart from those with the questions.
• The number of different scenes that each student had visited.
• The number of questions that each student had checked.

Thereafter, a statistical analysis was carried out based on the above information. The research results indicated that interactive 3D animations have greater contribution in the learning process than the other two types of visualization. The findings also suggested that all three types of the multimedia application increased the interest of students and make the material more appealing to them. Furthermore, they suggested that there is an obvious correlation between the total time students had dedicated in the scenes and the percentage of correct answers, in the applications with interactive 3D animations as well as with 3D animations.