Multimedia presentation

Draft

Definition

• A multimedia presentation is a message that uses multimedia.

• In education, “A multimedia instructional message is a presentation consisting of words and pictures that is designed to foster meaningful learning. Thus, there are two parts to the definition: (a) the presentation contains words and pictures, and (b) the presentation is designed to foster meaningful learning” (Mayer 2003: 128)

See also: multimedia animation which deals with a specific kind of multimedia presentation and the media debate which addresses the questions whether there can be a "pure" media effect.

Why multimedia presentations ?

The promise of multimedia learning is that, by combining pictures with words, we will be able to foster deeper learning in students. First, multimedia instruction messages can be designed in ways that are consistent with how people learn, and thus can serve as aids to human learning (Mayer, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2001). Second, there is a growing research base showing that students learn more deeply from welldesigned multimedia presentations than from traditional verbal-only messages, including improved performance on tests of problem-solving transfer (Mandl & Levin, 1989; Mayer, 2001; Najjar, 1998; Schnotz & Kulhavy, 1994; Sweller, 1999; Van Merrienboer, 1997). In short, the promise of multimedia learning is that teachers can tap the power of visual and verbal forms of expression in the service of promoting student understanding.

(Mayer 2003:127).

Multimedia effects

Mayer's research clearly demonstrated that under some conditions learners learn better when they are able to hold corresponding visual and verbal representations in working memory at the same time.

Multimedia effect

“The multimedia effect refers to the finding that students learn more deeply from a multimedia explanation presented in words and pictures than in words alone” (Mayer, 2003).

• Design Principle: Add pictures to words

Coherence effect

“The coherence effect refers to the finding that students learn more deeply from a multimedia explanation when extraneous material is excluded rather than included.” (Mayer, 2003)

• Design Principle: Eliminate extraneous words and pictures

Contiguity effect

“The spatial contiguity effect is that students learn more deeply from multimedia explanations when corresponding words and pictures are presented near to rather than far from each other on the page or screen.” (Mayer, 2003)

• Design Principle: Place words near corresponding pictures

Personalization

“The personalization effect is that students learn more deeply from a multimedia explanation when the words are presented in conversational style rather than formal style.” (Mayer, 2003)

• Design princpile: Use conversational style for words.

Is a computer better than a book ?

Mayer (2003) made an experiment with four instructional design methods (strategies) that were aimed at the issue of methods across media - how to design a multimedia message that promotes understanding and whether design principles that work in one media environment (e.g., learning from books) also work in a different media environment (e.g., learning from computers).

1. Multimedia effect with text-and-illustrations and narration-and-animation, i.e. it was examined in 2 variants: (a) printed text and illustrations on a page and (b) with spoken text and animation on a screen
2. Coherence effect with text-and-illustrations and narration-and-animation
3. Contiguity effect with text-and-illustrations and text-and-animation
4. Personalization effect with animation-and-narration and animation-and-text

“Our results provide four case examples of a straightforward finding: instructional design methods that promote deeper learning in one media environment (such as text and illustrations) also promote deep learning in other media environments (such as narration and animation). This means that good instructional methods can work across media. In short, the principles of instructional design do not necessarily change when the learning environment changes. [...] media environments do not cause learning, cognitive processing by the learner causes learning. If an instructional method promotes the same kinds of cognitive processing across different media, then it will result in the same benefits across media.” (Mayer 2003:127).

“Humans possess two channels - visual and verbal - regardless of whether material is presented by book or by computer. Each channel is limited in capacity regardless of whether material is presented by book or computer. Active cognitive processing - including selecting, organizing, and integrating mental representations - promotes meaningful learning regardless of whether material is presented by book or computer.”

Conclusions

• Multimedia can be beneficial when it is carefully design and does not overload human information processing.
• However, the same effects can be obtained with different media

References

• Mayer, Richard E. , The promise of multimedia learning: using the same instructional design methods across different media, Learning and Instruction, Volume 13, Issue 2, , April 2003, Pages 125-139. Abstract/PDF (Access restricted). (Note: The same journal issue also contains other important articles on multimedia in education)

• Mayer, 1997. R.E. Mayer , Multimedia learning: are we asking the right questions?. Educational Psychologist 32 (1997), pp. 1\u201319.

• Mayer, 1999a. R.E. Mayer , Multimedia aids to problem-solving transfer. International Journal of Educational Research 31 (1999), pp. 611\u2013623.

• Mayer, 1999b. R.E. Mayer , Research-based principles for the design of instructional messages. Document Design 1 (1999), pp. 7\u201320.

• Mayer, 2001. R.E. Mayer , Multimedia learning. , Cambridge University Press, New York (2001).

• Mandl and Levin, 1989. H. Mandl and J.R. Levin, Editors, Knowledge acquisition from text and pictures, North-Holland, Amsterdam (1989).

• Najjar, 1998. L.J. Najjar , Principles of educational multimedia user interface design. Human Factors 40 (1998), pp. 311-323.

• Schnotz and Kulhavy, 1994. W. Schnotz and R.W. Kulhavy, Editors, Comprehension of graphics, North-Holland, Amsterdam (1994).

• Sweller, 1999. J. Sweller , Instructional design in technological areas. , ACER Press, Camberwell, Australia (1999).

• Van Merrienboer, 1997. J.J.G. Van Merrienboer , Training complex cognitive skills. , Educational Technology Press, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (1997).