Audio Instructional Design Best Practices for an Enhanced Learning Experience. A Mixed Holistic-Systematic Mapping Study

Instructional design guidelines for multimedia educational materials are widely available; however, the recent literature on instructional audio is sparse. Existing studies fall short in organizing and synthesizing various findings to provide practical and generic guidelines in the design of audio-learning content. A systematic mapping study on the characteristics of audio instructional design over this single sensory medium was conducted to answer the four research questions advocated. The main outcome and contribution of this research are the organization and synthesis of various findings from the literature to provide a set of 23 audio instruction best practices that can be used in the development of audio-learning materials. The findings will be useful and suitable for adult learning, low-literate population empowerment, oral learners, visually impaired people, online students evolving in constrained internet connectivity environments, and adaptive context-aware mobile learning environments.