Revising the redundancy principle in multimedia learning.

College students viewed a short multimedia PowerPoint presentation consisting of 16 narrated slides explaining lightning formation (Experiment 1) or 8 narrated slides explaining how a car's braking system works (Experiment 2). Each slide appeared for approximately 8-10 s and contained a diagram along with 1-2 sentences of narration spoken in a female voice. For some students (the redundant group), each slide also contained 2-3 printed words that were identical to the words in the narration, conveyed the main event described in the narration, and were placed next to the corresponding portion of the diagram. For other students (the nonredundant group), no on-screen text was presented. Results showed that the group whose presentation included short redundant phrases within the diagram outperformed the nonredundant group on a subsequent test of retention (d = 0.47 and 0.70, respectively) but not on transfer. Results are explained by R. E. Mayer's (2001, 2005a) cognitive theory of multimedia learning, in which the redundant text served to guide the learner's attention without priming extraneous processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Case for Coherence in Scientific Explanations: Quantitative Details Can Hurt Qualitative Understanding.

In Experiments 1A and 1B, students read a concise booklet containing 653 words and 6 illustrations describing the formation, propagation, and dispersion of ocean waves (concise group) or an expanded booklet containing 327 additional words and 5 additional illustrations describing relevant mathematical formulas and computations interspersed throughout the lesson (expanded group). In Experiment 2, students viewed a multimedia presentation of narrated animations based on the concise or expanded booklet. In both studies, the expanded group performed more poorly than did the concise group on problem-solving transfer tests. The added quantitative details may have distracted the learner from constructing a qualitative model of the process of ocean waves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive constraints on multimedia learning: When presenting more material results in less understanding.

In 4 experiments, college students viewed an animation and listened to concurrent narration explaining the formation of lightning. When students also received concurrent on-screen text that summarized (Experiment 1) or duplicated (Experiment 2) the narration, they performed worse on tests of retention and transfer than did students who received no on-screen text. This redundancy effect is consistent with a dual-channel theory of multimedia learning in which adding on-screen text can overload the visual information-processing channel, causing learners to split their visual attention between 2 sources. Lower transfer performance also occurred when the authors added interesting but irrelevant details to the narration (Experiment 1) or inserted interesting but conceptually irrelevant video clips within (Experiment 3) or before the presentation (Experiment 4). This coherence effect is consistent with a seductive details hypothesis in which the inserted video and narration prime the activation of inappropriate prior knowledge as the organizing schema for the lesson. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Signaling as a cognitive guide in multimedia learning.

In 3 experiments, students received a short science lesson on how airplanes achieve lift and then were asked to write an explanation (retention test) and to write solutions to 5 problems, such as how to design an airplane to achieve lift more rapidly (transfer test). For some students, the lesson contained signals, including a preview summary paragraph outlining the 3 main steps involved in lift, section headings, and pointer words such as because or as a result. The signaling did not add any additional content information about lift but helped clarify the structure of the passage. Students who received signaling generated significantly more solutions on the transfer test than did students who did not receive signaling when the explanation was presented as printed text (Experiment 1), spoken text (Experiment 2), and spoken text with corresponding animation (Experiment 3). Results are consistent with a knowledge construction view of multimedia learning in which learners seek to build mental models of cause-and-effect systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multimedia Learning in an Interactive Self-Explaining Environment: What Works in the Design of Agent-Based Microworlds?

Students learned about electric motors by asking questions and receiving answers from an on-screen pedagogical agent named Dr. Phyz who stood next to an on-screen drawing of an electric motor. Students performed better on a problem-solving transfer test when Dr. Phyz's explanations were presented as narration rather than on-screen text (Experiment 1), when students were able to ask questions and receive answers interactively rather than receive the same information as a noninteractive multimedia message (Experiments 2a and 2b), and when students were given a prequestion to guide their self-explanations during learning (Experiment 3). Deleting Dr. Phyz's image from the screen had no significant effect on problem-solving transfer performance (Experiment 4). The results are consistent with a cognitive theory of multimedia learning and yield principles for the design of interactive multimedia learning environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When Static Media Promote Active Learning: Annotated Illustrations Versus Narrated Animations in Multimedia Instruction.

In 4 experiments, students received a lesson consisting of computer-based animation and narration or a lesson consisting of paper-based static diagrams and text. The lessons used the same words and graphics in the paper-based and computer-based versions to explain the process of lightning formation (Experiment 1), how a toilet tank works (Experiment 2), how ocean waves work (Experiment 3), and how a car's braking system works (Experiment 4). On subsequent retention and transfer tests, the paper group performed significantly better than the computer group on 4 of 8 comparisons, and there was no significant difference on the rest. These results support the static media hypothesis, in which static illustrations with printed text reduce extraneous processing and promote germane processing as compared with narrated animations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of text-based interest on attention and recall.

Attentional demands and recall for stories that differed in rated interest were examined. More interesting stories required fewer attentional resources for comprehension than did less interesting stories (Experiment 1). Overall recall did not differ across story interest, but story interest did interact with type of encoding in terms of recall levels (Experiment 2). Relational encoding improved recall for low-interest stories but not high-interest stories; the reverse pattern was obtained with a manipulation encouraging extensive processing of the individual propositions. We suggest that interesting stories free up resources for relatively optional organizational processing of the text elements, thereby rendering additional relational processing redundant (for recall). Less interesting stories require more resources to keep attention focused on encoding the individual propositions, thereby rendering additional proposition-specific processing redundant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Engaging students in active learning: The case for personalized multimedia messages.

The authors tested the hypothesis that personalized messages in a multimedia science lesson can promote deep learning by actively engaging students in the elaboration of the materials and reducing processing load. Students received a multimedia explanation of lightning formation (Experiments 1 and 2) or played an agent-based computer game about environmental science (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). Instructional messages were presented in either a personalized style, where students received spoken or written explanations in the 1st- and 2nd-person points of view, or a neutral style, where students received spoken or written explanations in the 3rd-person point of view. Personalized rather than neutral messages produced better problem-solving transfer performance across all experiments and better retention performance on the computer game. The theoretical and educational implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning by doing versus learning by viewing: Three experimental comparisons of learner-generated versus author-provided graphic organizers.

Do students learn more deeply from a passage when they attempt to construct their own graphic organizers (i.e., learning by doing) than when graphic organizers are provided (i.e., learning by viewing)? In 3 experiments, learners were tested on retention and transfer after reading a passage with author-provided graphic organizers or when asked to construct graphic organizers. In Experiment 1 (highest complexity), there were 27 author-provided graphic organizers or margin space for constructing graphic organizers. In Experiment 2 (intermediate complexity), there were 18 author-provided graphic organizers or 18 corresponding graphic organizer templates. In Experiment 3 (lowest complexity), there were 10 author-provided graphic organizers or 10 corresponding graphic organizer templates. On transfer, the effect size favored the author-provided group (Experiment 1: d = 0.24, ns; Experiment 2: d = 0.43, p     

Learning science in virtual reality multimedia environments: Role of methods and media.

College students learned about botany through an agent-based multimedia game. In Experiment 1, students received either spoken or identical on-screen text explanations; in addition, the lesson was presented either via a desktop display (D), a head-mounted display (HMD) used while sitting, or an HMD used while walking (W). In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of presenting explanations as narration (N), text (T), or both (NT) within the D and W conditions. Students scored higher on retention, transfer, and program ratings in N conditions than in T conditions. The NT condition produced results in between. Students gave higher ratings of presence when learning with HMDs, but media did not affect performance on measures of retention, transfer, or program ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of interest in learning from scientific text and illustrations: On the distinction between emotional interest and cognitive interest.

A textbook lesson may be made more interesting by promoting emotional interest through adding entertaining text and illustrations or by promoting cognitive interest through adding signals for structural understanding such as summary illustrations with captions. In Experiment 1, skilled readers who read summary text and illustrations about the process of lightning performed worse on retention of important information and on transfer when entertaining text, illustrations, or both were added. In Experiment 2, skilled readers rated entertaining text and illustrations relatively high in emotional interest and low in cognitive interest and rated summary illustrations and text relatively low in emotional interest and high in cognitive interest. The results suggest benefits of cognitive interest over emotional interest for helping students learn scientific explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drawing as a generative activity and drawing as a prognostic activity.

In this study, 9th-grade students (N = 196) with a mean age of 14.7 years read a scientific text explaining the chemical process of doing laundry with soap and water and then took 3 tests. Students who were instructed to generate drawings during learning scored higher than students who only read on subsequent tests of transfer (d = 0.91), retention (d = 0.87), and drawing (d = 2.00). For students who were instructed to generate drawings during learning, those who generated high-accuracy drawings (according to a median split) scored higher than students who generated low-accuracy drawings on subsequent tests of transfer (d = 0.99), retention (d = 0.79), and drawing (d = 1.87); furthermore, drawing-accuracy scores during learning correlated with learning-outcome scores on transfer (r = .57), retention (r = .50), and drawing (r = .82). Results suggest that drawing can serve as a generative activity and as a prognostic activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How seductive details do their damage: A theory of cognitive interest in science learning.

In 4 experiments, students who read expository passages with seductive details (i.e., interesting but irrelevant adjuncts) recalled significantly fewer main ideas and generated significantly fewer problem-solving transfer solutions than those who read passages without seductive details. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3, revising the passage to include either highlighting of the main ideas, a statement of learning objectives, or signaling, respectively, did not reduce the seductive details effect. In Experiment 4, presenting the seductive details at the beginning of the passage exacerbated the seductive details effect, whereas presenting the seductive details at the end of the passage reduced the seductive details effect. The results suggest that seductive details interfere with learning by priming inappropriate schemas around which readers organize the material, rather than by distracting the reader or by disrupting the coherence of the passage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching with concrete and abstract visual representations: Effects on students' problem solving, problem representations, and learning perceptions.

In 3 experiments, we examined the effects of using concrete and/or abstract visual problem representations during instruction on students' problem-solving practice, near transfer, problem representations, and learning perceptions. In Experiments 1 and 2, novice students learned about electrical circuit analysis with an instructional program that included worked-out and practice problems represented with abstract (Group A), concrete (Group C), or abstract and concrete diagrams (Group AC), whereby the cover stories were abstract in Group A and concrete in Groups C and AC. Experiment 3 added a 4th condition (C-A) with a concrete cover story and abstract diagrams. Group AC outperformed Groups A and C on problem-solving practice in Experiments 1 and 2 and outperformed Group C on transfer across the 3 experiments; Group AC also outperformed Group C-A in Experiment 3. Further, Group A outperformed Group C on transfer in Experiments 2 and 3 and outperformed Group C-A in Experiment 3. Transfer scores were positively associated with the quality of the diagrams and the number of abstract representations drawn during the transfer test. Data on students' learning perceptions suggest that the advantage of Group AC relies on the combined cognitive support of both representations. Our studies indicate that problem solving is fostered when learners experience concrete visual representations that connect to their prior knowledge and are enabled to use abstract visual representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of Guidance, Reflection, and Interactivity in an Agent-Based Multimedia Game.

The authors investigated whether guidance and reflection would facilitate science learning in an interactive multimedia game. College students learned how to design plants to survive in different weather conditions. In Experiment 1, they learned with an agent that either guided them with corrective and explanatory feedback or corrective feedback alone. Some students were asked to reflect by giving explanations about their problem-solving answers. Guidance in the form of explanatory feedback produced higher transfer scores, fewer incorrect answers, and greater reduction of misconceptions during problem solving. Reflection in the form of having students give explanations for their answers did not affect learning. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that reflection promotes retention and far transfer in noninteractive environments but not in interactive ones unless students are asked to reflect on correct program solutions rather than on their own solutions. Results support the appropriate use of guidance and reflection for interactive multimedia games. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A coherence effect in multimedia learning: The case for minimizing irrelevant sounds in the design of multimedia instructional messages.

The authors tested the recommendation that adding bells and whistles (in the form of background music and/or sounds) would improve the quality of a multimedia instructional message. In 2 studies, students received an animation and concurrent narration intended to explain the formation of lightning (Experiment 1) or the operation of hydraulic braking systems (Experiment 2). For some students, the authors added background music (Group NM), sounds (Group NS), both (Group NSM), or neither (Group N). On tests of retention and transfer, Group NSM performed worse than Group N; groups receiving music performed worse than groups not receiving music; and groups receiving sounds performed worse (only in Experiment 2) than groups not receiving sounds. Results were consistent with the idea that auditory adjuncts can overload the learner's auditory working memory, as predicted by a cognitive theory of multimedia learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When less is more in cognitive diagnosis: A rapid online method for diagnosing learner task-specific expertise.

Rapid cognitive diagnosis allows measuring current levels of learner domain-specific knowledge in online learning environments. Such measures are required for individualizing instructional support in real time, as students progress through a learning session. This article describes 2 experiments designed to validate a rapid online diagnostic method that was inspired by experimental procedures applied in classical cognitive studies of chess expertise. With the described rapid verification method, learners are required to rapidly verify suggested steps at various stages of a problem solution procedure. In this study involving 33 university students, a high degree of correlation was found between rapid testing scores and results of in-depth cognitive diagnosis based on observations of problem-solving steps using video recordings and concurrent verbal reports in the domains of kinematics (vector addition motion problems) and mathematics (transforming graphs of linear and quadratic functions). The article discusses possible applications of the suggested method in adaptive learning environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When less is more: Meaningful learning from visual and verbal summaries of science textbook lessons.

In a series of 3 experiments, college students who read a summary that contained a sequence of short captions with simple illustrations depicting the main steps in the process of lightning recalled these steps and solved transfer problems as well as or better than students who received the full text along with the summary or the full text alone. In Experiment 2, taking away the illustrations or the captions eliminated the effectiveness of the summary. In Experiment 3, adding text to the summary reduced its effectiveness. Implications for a cognitive theory of multimedia learning are discussed; implications for instructional design pertain to the need for conciseness, coherence, and coordination in presenting scientific explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Varying tutorial modality and interface restriction to maximize transfer in a complex simulation environment.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 103(2) of Journal of Educational Psychology (see record 2011-10421-001). The name of the author Laura G. Torres was omitted.] In 2 experiments, 241 undergraduates with low domain knowledge viewed a tutorial on how to use Packet Tracer (PT), a computer-networking training simulation developed by the Cisco Networking Academy. Participants were then tested on retention of tutorial content and transfer using PT. Tutorial modality (text, narration, or narration plus text) was varied betweens subjects in both experiments, and simulation interface restriction (restricted or unrestricted) was varied between subjects only in Experiment 1. When PT's interface was unrestricted, students who received the narration tutorial performed better on the transfer task compared with students who received the text tutorial (statistically significant in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2). These findings extend the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2005) by testing modality effects in new contexts and further specifying conditions of its applicability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of three measures of cognitive load: Evidence for separable measures of intrinsic, extraneous, and germane load.

Understanding how to measure cognitive load is a fundamental challenge for cognitive load theory. In 2 experiments, 155 college students (ages = 17 to 22; 49 men and 106 women) with low domain knowledge learned from a multimedia lesson on electric motors. At 8 points during learning, their cognitive load was measured via self-report scales (mental effort ratings) and response time to a secondary visual monitoring task, and they completed a difficulty rating scale at the end of the lesson. Correlations among the three measures were generally low. Analyses of variance indicated that the response time measure was most sensitive to manipulations of extraneous processing (created by adding redundant text), effort ratings were most sensitive to manipulations of intrinsic processing (created by sentence complexity), and difficulty ratings were most sensitive to indications of germane processing (reflected by transfer test performance). Results are consistent with a triarchic theory of cognitive load in which different aspects of cognitive load may be tapped by different measures of cognitive load. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)