Unification of Multimedia with Techniques of Art and Vedic Aphorisms for Development of Mathematical Skills: A Study of Indian and UK School Students

Multimedia programs having a number of elements like Texts, spoken words, sound & music, graphics, animations and still pictures provide different stimuli in their presentations. Art is the field of education that provides a platform for rigorous investigation, representation, expression, and reflection of both scholastic content and the art form itself. The integration of art with other subjects of school curriculum can open new pathways of learning for students, particularly for those who are at risk and have special needs. Vedic Mathematics is an approach to resolve the crisis in education especially in the field of mathematics. It is not simply a collection of new computational techniques; rather, it provides an entirely different approach to mathematical computation based on pattern recognition. It has been shown that the system is applicable to up-to-date aspects of mathematics both at an elementary level as well as in more sophisticated fields. The present paper deals with the development of multimedia packages using techniques of art and Vedic aphorisms on some selected common topics of curriculum of UK and Indian elementary mathematics and the effectiveness of multimedia packages for the development of mathematical skills. The study was conducted using quasi experimental design for research in both the countries. The quantitative analysis of data revealed that the multimedia packages developed by using techniques of art and Vedic Aphorisms have significantly improved the mathematical skills of UK elementary school students.