When redundant on-screen text in multimedia technical instruction can interfere with learning (original) (raw)

Verbal Redundancy in Multimedia Learning Environments: A Meta-Analysis

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2012

Verbal redundancy arises from the concurrent presentation of text and verbatim speech. To inform theories of multimedia learning that guide the design of educational materials, a meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of spoken-only, written-only, and spoken–written presentations on learning retention and transfer. After an extensive search for experimental studies meeting specified inclusion criteria, data from 57 independent studies were extracted. Most of the research participants were postsecondary students. Overall, this meta-analysis revealed that outcomes comparing spoken–written and written-only presentations did not differ, but students who learned from spoken–written presentations outperformed those who learned from spoken-only presentations. This effect was dependent on learners' prior knowledge, pacing of presentation, and inclusion of animation or diagrams. Specifically, the advantages of spoken–written presentations over spoken-only presentations were found for low prior knowledge learners, system-paced learning materials, and picture-free materials. In comparison with verbatim, spoken–written presentations, presentations displaying key terms extracted from spoken narrations were associated with better learning outcomes and accounted for much of the advantage of spoken–written over spoken-only presentations. These findings have significant implications for the design of multimedia materials.

Redundancy effect on retention of vocabulary words using multimedia presentation_ 1320 166..170

This study was designed to examine the effect of the redundancy principle in a multimedia presentation constructed for foreign language vocabulary learning on undergraduate students' retention. During the experiment, students received a multimedia presentation on Turkish vocabulary and answered questions on retention test. Some students received animation, concurrent narration and concurrent text (ANT group); other students received only animation and concurrent narration (AN group). According to the redundancy principle, adding redundant on-screen text to a multimedia explanation where it is already narrated, results in poorer learning (Kalyuga, Chandler & Sweller, 1999; Mayer, Heiser & Lonn, 2001). That is, when making a multimedia presentation with a narration and animation, the designers should not add on-screen text that duplicates words that are already spoken in the narration although students have more exposure to the multimedia presentation when it is delivered in three ways (animation, narration and text). The reason for removing on-screen text from the multimedia presentation is because of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning that is based on three assumptions: dual-channel (Clark & Paivio, 1991), limited capacity (Baddeley, 1992) and generative learning assumption (Mayer, 1996) or active processing. On the other hand, the reason for adding on-screen text is based on the information delivery hypothesis, which states that students learn more when the same information is delivered by means of more paths rather than fewer paths (Mayer et al, 2001). That is, " adding on-screen text to a narrated animation will result in better performance on tests of learning that focus on remembering verbal explanation (ie, retention test) " (Mayer et al, 2001, p. 190).Therefore, the underlying hypothesis of this study is that when the students are exposed to the material in multiple ways through ANT, the learning and the retention will have better results in foreign language learning. Early research on vocabulary learning with text and pictures has consistently found that when the written vocabulary words are paired with pictures, there is a better retention of vocabulary words (Paivio, Clark & Lambert, 1988; Plass & Jones, 2005). Besides, presenting both on-screen text and narration at the same time is better than presenting just on-screen text or narration because students might choose the one that best fits their learning style (Mayer et al, 2001). This small study is expected to contribute to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning literature in three ways. First, the study was realized in ecologically more valid environment than Mayer's experiments, because the experiment was done through authentic classroom experience. Unlike the experiments done in Mayer's cognitive laboratory, this study was done within regular classroom settings. Classroom research is an important way to establish external validity of findings when using multimedia. Second, the study was done in a different content area, foreign language learning. It was suggested by Plass and Jones (2005, p. 483) that an area for future research is " the integration of second-language acquisition theory and cognitive theories of multimedia learning. " Third, the study was conducted with non-Turkish speaking students, which is also another contribution to the literature on multimedia learning. Besides, students'