Richard E. Clark is a professor and Chair in the Division of Educational Technology as well as Director of Professional Studies in the School of Education at the University of Southern California at Los Angelos.

Richard Clark has authored and co-authored a number of articles on the topics of research in instructional technology, distance learning technologies, media, etc. One article with a particular compelling title: Media will Never Influence Learning, was written to address, and summarize the author’s conversation (argument) about the research and theory of the influence media plays on learning.

The article begins with his claim in 1983 that “media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition” (1983, p.445). In this article Clark challenges Kozma and others in the area “to find evidence, in a well designed study, of any instance of a medium or media attributes that are not replaceable by a different set of media and attributes to achieve similar learning results for any given student and learning task” (1994, p. 22). Ultimately Clark contends that educators choose the least expensive solution.

Again and again, Clark’s articles contend that media does not influence learning. However, in his 1989 article, Current Progress and Future Directions for Research in Instructional Technology, he makes the statement that many of the reports gave evidence of inadequate design. This is a similar claim made by Larry Cuban in his research on the effectiveness of technology in education.