Multimedia information and learning

Abstract

Multimedia is being used increasingly to provide computer based instruction. One reason for this trend may be the assumption that multimedia information helps people learn. To find out whether there is empirical support for this assumption, this paper reviews studies from a wide variety of fields to show that multimedia-may be able to help people learn more information more quickly compared to traditional classroom lecture. Redundant multimedia does not always improve learning compared to "monomedia." Specific situations in which multimedia information may help people to learn include (a) when the media encourage dual coding of information, (b) when the media support one another, and (c) when the media are presented to learners with low prior knowledge or aptitude in the domain being learned. There is empirical support for concluding that specific multimedia can be used to help people learn specific kinds of information. Multimedia is the use of text, graphics, animation, pictures, video, and sound to present information. Since these media can now be integrated using a computer, there has been a virtual explosion of computer based multimedia instructional applications. These applications run the gamut from serious computer-based tutorials for adults to the new category of "edutainment " products for children. These very diverse applications seem to share a common assumption-multimedia information helps people learn. This assumption seems to be based more on personal opinion than on scientifically based fact. People enjoy multimedia, prefer multimedia learning materials, and believe that multimedia

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 327 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.