As society’s interactions with web technology mature from novelty to familiarity and finally into transparence for users, it becomes important to reexamine what modern students are taking from their experiences with educational technology. Students in a physical chemistry laboratory course interacted with a hypermedia learning environment as part of the course. The PCIP DVD is a hypermedia, multimedia resource for teaching about physical chemistry through examples of current research. The DVD gives students exposure to the uses of physical chemistry in an applied setting to which they would not normally have access, and allows them to view the material at their own pace in an order of their choosing. Student participants were recorded as they interacted with hypermedia in the naturalistic setting of a physical chemistry laboratory course. Volunteers from the student population were then interviewed about their decisions as they reviewed their recording. The interview transcripts were analyzed for themes in student decision making.