multimedia+learning

Teaching and learning > presentations

This page focuses on the work of Richard Mayer.

How to increase the effectiveness of multimedia learning

 * 1) Exclude unnecessary & extraneous words, pictures and sounds.
 * 2) Use cues that highlight the essential bits.
 * 3) Use narration and graphics rather than graphics, narration and on-screen text.
 * 4) Words and images that are related should be close to each other, e.g. on screen.
 * 5) Words and images that are related should be presented simultaneously.
 * 6) User-paced segments are more effective.
 * 7) Use pre-training to allow learners to get some knoweldge of key concepts beforehand.
 * 8) Use graphics and narration rather than animation and on-screen text.
 * 9) Use words and images rather than words alone.
 * 10) Use a conversational rather than formal style when narrating.
 * 11) Use a friendly human voice for the narration rather than a computer-generated one.
 * 12) There is no need to add the image of the narrator on screen (i.e. for stand-alone elearning)

Geeky table
In this table the different principles are listed together with the effect size derived from studies [the bigger the effect size, the greater the effect of that principle - anything above 0.8 is considered to be a large effect].


 * **Principle** || **Effect size** ||
 * Coherence || 0.97 ||
 * Signaling || 0.52 ||
 * Redunancy || 0.72 ||
 * Spatial contiguity || 1.19 ||
 * Temporal contiguity || 1.31 ||
 * Segmenting || 0.98 ||
 * Pre-training || 0.85 ||
 * Modality || 1.02 ||
 * Multimedia || 1.39 ||
 * Personalisation || 1.11 ||
 * Voice || 0.78 ||
 * Image || 0.22 ||

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[|Multimedia learning]