Running head: HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
How Should We Build Multimedia Lessons In Ways That Are Compatible With Human
Learning Processes?
Chivonda Coleman
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
1
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
2
Abstract
According to Meyer, multimedia instruction is presentations involving words and pictures that
enhance learning. Multimedia message is presentations involving words and pictures.
Multimedia learning is learning that consist of words and pictures (Mayer, 2009). The students in
the Learning System Technology class learn that the human mind have two information
processing material. One processing material is verbal and the other processing material is
visual.
Building multimedia lessons in ways that are compatible with human learning processes should
contain the twelve principles of multimedia learning because everybody does not learn the same.
The twelve learning principles are coherence principle, signaling principle, redundancy principle,
spatial contiguity principle, temporal contiguity principle, segmenting principle, pre-training
principle, modality principle, multimedia principle, personalization principal, voice principle,
and image principle (Mayer, 2009).
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
3
How Should We Build Multimedia Lessons In Ways That Are Compatible With Human
Learning Processes?
Coherence Principle
The coherence principle is for people who learn better when irrelevant words, pictures,
and sounds are excluded rather than included (Mayer, 2009). The coherence principle may work
for people who memory capacity is low and has difficulty learning. Coherence principle simply
states that less information or material is better for the learner. To remove some of the details or
information is called seductive details (Mueller, Lee, & Sharma, 2008). Removing the seductive
details allows the learner to use his or her cognitive skills to process the information.
The research question for this principle is, do adding irrelevant but interesting words,
pictures, or sound to multimedia affect student learning? After researching a peer viewed article
title “Learning with Animation and Illusions of Understanding.” This article clarifies what
Richard Mayer and other researchers explain about the coherence principle. This article
concludes that learners present less cognitive effort when learning with animation. The study use
representational animation and directive animation. The representational animation had a
negative effect on learning and directive made a positive effect on learning. The induce
animation cause more confident in low proficiency learners but more pessimistic comprehension
in high proficiency learners (Paik & Schraw, 2012).
Signaling Principle
The signaling principle is a principle that helps learners people learn better when cues
that highlight the organization of the essential material are added (Mayer, 2009). The cues in
signaling includes an outline sentence, headings that are keyed to the outline, vocal emphasis on
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
4
key words, and pointer words. Signaling do not add new infornation therefore; it should have no
effect on learning (Mayer, 2009). Signaling should be used to guide learners cognitive
processing.
The research question for this principle is, do signaling help enhance multimedia learning
among students? After reading a peer viewed article titled,”Why does signaling enhance
multimedia learning? A peer viewed study suggest that signaling do enhance multimedia
learning. The study consist of fourty participants who was pressented with a signal or non-signal
material. The study examine the effects of signaling using eye movement measures. The results
show that signaled group outperformed the non-signal group on transfer and matching test
(Ismahan, 2010).
Redundancy Priniciple
The redundancy principle is for people that learn better from graphics and narration than
from graphics, narration, and printed text (Mayer, 2009). Presenting words using text and
narration can cause frustration to the learner or an overload of working memory . Learning is
hindered if the proper redundancy principle is ignored.
The research question for this principle is, which approach is better for mutimedia
learning a redudant or a non-redundant approach? After reading a journal by Richard E. Mayer
called ,”Revising the redundancy principle in mutimedia learning”. The participants for this
study was college students. The students viewed a sixteen narrated slide powerpoint presentation
explaining the formation of lighting. The other powerpoint consist of eight slides explaining how
a car braking system works. The students in the redundant group had slides that consist of two to
three printed words that was identical to the narration. The students in the non-redundant group
did not have on screen text. The study showed that the students in the redudant group out
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
5
performed the students in the non-redundant group base on a subsequent test of retention
(Mayer, 2009).
Spatial Contiquity Principle
The spatial contiquity principle is people who learn better when corresponding words and
pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen (Mayer, 2009).
Students who use the spatial contiquity principle use cognitive resources to search the page or
screen visually and doing this causes students to not hold both the words and pictures in working
memory at the same time.
The research question for this primciple, how can spatial contiquity effects in multimedia
learning? A study using college students that was seperated according three studies to test their
eye movements while the students viewed a single-slide multimedia presentation about how car
brakes work.The outcome reveals that spatial contiquity encourages more intergrated words and
pictures during learning because it produces meaningful learning (Johnson & Mayer, 2012).
Temporal Contiguity Principle
Temporal contiguity principle is for people who learn better when corresponding words
and pictures are presented concurrently rather than consecutively (Mayer, 2009). The temporal
contiguity principle help the learner to assume something is wrong the instructional designer’s
job is current information (Mayer, 2009). Learners benefit from some guidance on how to
process the incoming material. Presentations that are simultaneous help the learner to build
associations between corresponding visual and verbal material.
The research that Mayer perform was, do students learn more deeply when corresponding
narration and animation are presented simultaneously than when they are presented successively,
as proposed by the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2009)? The experiment
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
6
consist of students who learned from successive presentations versus students who learned from
simultaneous presentations. The outcome prove that the simultaneous group outperformed the
succesive group (Mayer, 2009).
Segmenting Principle
Segmenting principle is when people learn better when a multimedia lesson is presented
in user-paced segments rather than as a continous unit (Mayer, 2009). During segmenting it
gives the learners plenty of time to process each segment fully before moving on to the next
lesson. A hypothetical analysis suggest that students who receive a segmented lesson should
perform better than students who receive continuous lesson on problem-solving.
The research perform for this principle is do students learn more when a narrated
animation is presented in a learner controlled segment rather than a continuous unit? The
experiment compared the problem-solving transfer test performance of students that watch a
narrated animation on the formation of lighting as a continuous presentation to the performance
of students who watch the same presentation broken down into sixteen segments. The study
shows that the segmented group out performed the continous group (Mayer, 2009).
Pre-training Principle
The pre-training principle is when people learn better from a mutimedia lesson when they
know the names and characteristics of the main concepts (Mayer, 2009). During pre-training it
provides the learner with a prior knowledge that decrease the amount of processing needed to
understand the narratated animation. The prediction on pre-training is students who receive pretraining on the key concepts should perform better on problem-solving than students who did
not have pre-training.
Modality Principle
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
7
The modality principle is when learning is better from graphics and narration than from
animation and on-screen text (Mayer, 2009). Modality is based on the duel-channel hypothesis
that indicates people have two separate information-processing channels. One channel is for
visual/pictorial processing and the other channel is for auditory/ verbal processing. When words
are presented as narration, the auditory/verbal channel is used for processing words. The
visual/pictorial channel processes pictures (Mayer, 2009). The research base on the cognitive
effects predicts that students who receive a multimedia lesson will perform better with problemsolving test when the words are presented as spoken text rather than printed text (Mayer, 2009).
Multimedia Principle
The multimedia principle is a principle that allows people to learn better from words and
pictures than from words alone (Mayer, 2009). Multimedia presentations perform processing by
making it easier for learners to build relationships between words and pictures. The cognitive
theory of multimedia learning indicates that students will learn more from multimedia using both
words and pictures than from a presentation in only one format. Students who perform better on
test are the students who learn with words and pictures.
Personalization Principle
The personalization principle is when people learn better from multimedia lessons when
words are in conversational style rather than formal style. Sometimes personalization can
become too noticeable and it can distract the learner from the main points in a lesson by
interfering with learning. Personalization may encourage learners to learn multimedia lessons
and to engage in each of the cognitive processes. Additional research is needed to determine the
conditions under which too much personalization violates the coherence principle (Mayer, 2009).
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
8
Voice Principle
The voice principle is when people learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons
is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice. Mayer did a study to determine
if the students understand multimedia lesson by using a human voice or a machine voice? The
experiment revealed that students perform worse on a problem-solving test listening to the
machine voice. There is more research needed on the role of the speaker voice in multimedia
messages and which aspects of the instructor’s voice triggers which cognitive processes in which
kinds of learners (Mayer, 2009).
Image Principle
The image principle is people who do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia
lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen (Mayer, 2009). Adding the instructor’s
image on the screen can cause the learner to become distracted. The learner focuses his or her
attention on the instructor and not on the material. The best way to increase the learner sense of
social presence is to add an on-screen character who delivers the message. More research is
needed to determine the conditions which the presence of on-screen agents can promote learning.
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
Conclusion
In conclusion, if the twelve principles of multimedia design is use to make learning easy
for humans it can lower confusion and failure. The twelve principles have a unique
characteristic. If an instructor wants to promote multimedia learning then he or she needs to
include the coherence principle, signaling principle, redundancy principle, spatial contiguity
principal, temporal, segmenting, pre-training, modality, multimedia, personalization, voice, and
image principle. Multimedia helps the difficult learners to understand things that would be hard
to understand with only words.
9
HOW SHOULD WE BUILD MULTIMEDIA LESSONS
10
References
Ismahan, A. (2010). Why does signaling enhance multimedia learnign? Computers in Human
Behavior , 110-117.
Johnson, C. I., & Mayer, R. E. (2012). An eye movement analysis of the spatial contiguity effect
in multimedia learning. US: American Psychological Association , 178-191.
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Mutimedia learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mueller, D. A., Lee, K. J., & Sharma, M. D. (2008). Coherence or Interest: Which is most
important in online multimedia learning? Australasian Journal of Educational
Technology.
Paik, E. S., & Schraw, G. (2012). Learning with animations and illusions of understanding.
Journal of Educational Psychology , 1-13.