Summary:
Overall animation increases performance with better learning
results and less effort. However, visual
cues rated better than replacing visual text with spoken text. Multimedia materials using both words and
pictures have the highest instructional efficiency for retention and
transfer. It is also important to
recognize that when creating materials to keep them brief, concise and on one
topic. Adding additional topics in the
animated format can become confusing. Irrelevant, although sometimes interesting, facts can result in lower
transfer performance.
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Reference |
Population |
Purpose/Questions
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Findings/Implications |
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Tabbers, H. K, Martens, R. L., & van Merrienboer, J. J. G. (2004). Multimedia instructions and cognitive load theory: effects of modality and cueing. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74 (1), 71-81. |
111 second-year students (16 males and 95 females, age between 19 and 24 years). |
The purpose of this study was to test the generalisability of the modality (replacing visual text with spoken text) and cueing effect (adding visual cues relating elements of a picture to the text) in a classroom setting.
Hypothesis 1 : Multimedia instructions (with modality and cueing) increase the retention and transfer of information. Hypothesis 2: Spoken text (audio version) has a superior effect than visual text (text above diagram). |
Only a weak cueing effect and even a reverse modality effect were found, indicating that both effects do not easily generalize to non-laboratory settings. A possible explanation for the reversed modality effect is that the multimedia instructions in this study were learner-paced, as opposed to the system-paced instructions used in earlier research. Hypothesis 1: The presumed positive effect of adding visual cues to the diagrams is only noticeable in the results of the retention test but not in the transfer test or in any of the mental effort measures. Hypothesis 2: The hypothesized superiority of spoken text over visual text, the results on the tests are even contrary to expectations. Students in the visual conditions perform better than students in the audio conditions on both retention and transfer. |
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Experiment 1: 98 undergraduate students (84 females and 14 males). 17 in I-P (interactive pictures) group, 16 in the I-W (interactive words) group, 15 in the I-WP (interactive, descriptive words for pictures) group, 16 in the NI-P (non-interactive picture) group, 15 in the NI-W (non-interactive words) group, and 19 in the NI-WP (non-interactive descriptive words for pictures) group. Experiment 2: 53 undergraduate students (45 females and 8 males). 17 in the I-UT (interactive user-time controlled) group, 18 in I-ST (interactive system-timed condition) and NI-ST (not-interactive, system-timed condition) groups. Experiment 3: 31 undergraduate students (27 females and 4 males). 15 in the I-SF (interactive, systems- feedback) group, and 16 in I-UF (interactive, user-feedback) group. |
Experiment 1: The goal of this study was to examine the role of dual code and interactivity in promoting scientific understanding. Experiment 2: To determine if the negative interactivity effects (in Experiment 1) were due to participants’ lack of control of the time deemed necessary to organize the multimedia materials. The prediction in this experiment was that I-UT group to be more efficient as a result of higher performance and lower mental effort in experiment I. And Condition I-ST to be the least effective. Experiment 3: To test the hypothesis that the type of feedback given to Group I in Experiment 1 hurt learning by promoting the superficial processing of the multimedia materials. In this comparison related to the cognitive load and learning outcomes of and interactive, system feedback was conducted. Here the students were presented with frame by frame corrective feedback, and an interactive, user-feedback (I-UF) condition that required student evaluation of the correctness of the organized set of frames before submitting the sequence for system feedback. |
Experiment 1: Strongly supported the dual-code hypothesis, which predicts the students learn better when provided with visual and verbal knowledge representations rather than visual or verbal representations alone. That is, learning with non-redundant, integrated words and pictures is significantly more efficient than learning with text or pictures alone. While, contrary to the predictions, the self-organization technique hurt students’ learning from the multimedia program. A possible explanation for these negative interactivity effects could be the time to organize the materials was imposed by the computer program. If students were provided unconstrained time to organize the materials the results could have been different. Experiment 2: There was no support for the hypothesis that the negative interactivity effects found in Experiment 1 were due to participants’ lack of control of the time necessary to organize the multimedia materials. In fact, contrary to the expectations, Group I-UT spent less rather than more time on the multimedia program than the time given to the other groups by the system. Experiment 3: There was significant difference among the groups on measures of retention, transfer, and difficulty ratings. The hypothesis that effective interactivity requires feedback designs that promote the intentional and purposeful processing of the information was supported. |
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Mayer, R. & Jackson, J. (2005). The case for coherence in scientific explanations: Quantitative details can hurt qualitative understanding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11(1),13-18. |
22 first-year college students from |
Students read a concise booklet containing 653 words and 6 illustrations or an expanded booklet with an additional 327 words and five extra illustrations. In another experiment, students watched a multimedia show of narrated animation based on the booklets. The goal was to see which booklet or animation the students best remembered by. |
In both of the studies, the expanded group did worse, hinting that the extra information interfered with processing and transfer. |
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Mayer, R., Heiser, J. & Lonn, S. (2001). Cognitive constraints on multimedia learning: When presenting more material results in less understanding. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, (1), 187-198. |
78 Psychology students from the Student pool at the |
Do students learn more of the explanation when interesting but irrelevant video clips are presented after rather than before a multimedia explanation? Do students understand more deeply when interesting but irrelevant video clips are presented after rather than before a multimedia explanation? |
Pictures without text were the best for recall. Too much on the screen impaired recall with the redundancy effect. |
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Glang, A., Noell, J., Ary, D., & Swartz, L. (2005). Using interactive multimedia to teach pedestrian safety: An exploratory study. American Journal of Health Behavior. 29 (5), 435-442. |
700 students from three elementary schools, grades K-3. |
Does the use of animated simulations help school children increase their understanding and use of rules concerning pedestrian safety. |
The children learned from the animated simulation, with the lessons also reinforcing behavior. The children were very attentive to the animated lessons. |