This contribution highlights the role of？？affective processes in multimedia learning conducted by e-learning platform used in the General Psychology online laboratory activities, based on semistructured self-evaluation tests following the model proposed by Domenici (2005). These tests include items with a closed- and open-ended structure requiring the student to answer within space restrictions and, in some cases, within context simulations. This enables scorers to give generally univocal and objective scores thereby assuring high test validity and reliability. The focus is on the psychological aspects of the online tutor’s role and its effects on learning levels. Students who completed the online laboratory activities through the semistructured self-evaluation tests ( ) obtained an average score of 27.7 in the objective examination; students who did not complete the activities or who never even started them ( ) obtained an average score of 25.7. These differences are statistically significant ( ; ). The advantages of online learning are highlighted: developing an active attitude towards learning, enabling the individualisation of learning, and strengthening motivation with regard to knowledge, self-assertiveness, and sociality. This motivational activation reinforces convergent and divergent cognitive skills, owing to the semistructured tests, which facilitate knowledge and study method acquisition. 1. Introduction (Main Research Paradigm in Cognitive and Motivational Processes in Online Learning) In the recent specialist literature, the main theoretical models show the cognitive functions (attention, perception, and memory) which go to influence multimedia learning: managed by metacognitive processes and nurtured by emotional-motivational components Mourlas et al. [1]. In its more developed forms, this kind of learning is characterised by the integrated use of different communication channels (multimediality). A great deal of research, particularly over the last few decades, has pinpointed some important factors characterising multimedia learning in e-learning contexts and, among the main theories devised, there is the one by Mayer [2], which integrates and summarises the general principles stressed in the previous orientations. Mayer took up Paivio’s [3] dual-coding theory, according to which sensory memory and working memory proceed through two separate channels when we have visual and auditory type information available, and this reinforces the learning and recall of the contents themselves. He also took up the so-called load theory by Chandler and
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