Animations need narrations: An experimental test of a dual-coding hypothesis.

Abstract

In 2 experiments, mechanically naive college students viewed an animation depicting the operation of a bicycle tire pump that included a verbal description given before (words-beforepictures) or during (words-with-pictures) the animation. The words-with-pictures group outperformed the words-before-pictures group on tests of creative problem solving that involved reasoning about how the pump works. In a follow-up experiment, students in the words-withpictures group performed better on the problem-solving test than students who saw the animation without words (pictures only), heard the words without the animation (words only), or received no training (control). Results support a dual-coding hypothesis (Paivio, 1990) that posits two kinds of connections: representational connections between verbal stimuli and verbal representations and between visual stimuli and visual representations and referential connections between visual and verbal representations.A major goal of science is to provide explanations for how various physical, biological, and social systems work. It follows that a major goal of science education is to help students understand scientific explanations. What constitutes an understandable explanation? How can educators help sciencenaive students to understand scientific explanations? In particular, how can computer-based animations be used to promote scientific understanding? These are the issues addressed in this article.Preliminary information regarding these questions is provided by previous studies on the relation between explanative text, that is, step-by-step descriptions of cause-and-effect actions occurring within a system, and explanative illustrations, that is, frame-by-frame pictures of the cause-and-effect changes occurring within the system, in helping students to understand scientific explanations (Mayer, 1989a(Mayer, , 1989bMayer & Gallini, 1990). Students read passages on topics such as how pumping systems work, how braking systems work, or how electrical generation systems work and then answered creative problem-solving questions such as how to improve or troubleshoot the system. Some students read passages that contained explanative text followed by explanative illustrations (i.e., words before pictures); others read passages that included explanative illustrations with verbal labels corresponding to each step in the explanative text (i.e.,

Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction.

“…However, according to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, learners must have corresponding words and images in working memory at the same time in order to make connections between them, so simultaneous presentation should result in better learning than successive presentation. As predicted, in 8 out of 8 experiments involving computer-based lessons on pumps, brakes, lungs, and lightning, learners performed better on answering transfer questions when they received simultaneous presentation of animation and narration rather than successive presentation (Mayer & Anderson, 1991, Experiments 1 and 2a; Mayer & Anderson, 1992, Experiments 1 and 2; Mayer, Moreno, Boire, & Vagge, 1999, Experiments 1 and 2; Mayer & Sims, 1994, Experiments 1 and 2). The me-dian effect size was 1.31, which is considered a large effect.…”

Visual representations in science education: The influence of prior knowledge and cognitive load theory on instructional design principles

“…In one example, students listening to an explanation of bicycle tire pump operation performed moderately well on retention tests and poorly on transfer tests; students viewing an animation on the same topic performed poorly on retention and transfer tests. On the other hand, students viewing the narrative animation performed well on both retention and transfer tests (Mayer & Anderson, 1991).…”

“…For example, students viewing an audiovisual presentation on soldering theory outperformed students receiving a visual-only presentation (Kalyuga et al, 1999). In addition, a series of studies performed by Mayer and his colleagues (Mayer & Anderson, 1991;Mayer & Moreno, 2002) suggested that students receiving animations with narration (on lighting formation, car braking systems, or bicycle tire pump operation) outperformed students viewing the same animation with on-screen text in recall and problem-solving transfer tests.…”

The influence of prior knowledge on viewing and interpreting graphics with macroscopic and molecular representations

“…Research on visual representations has received a great deal of attention in the science education literature (Hegarty, Carpenter, & Just, 1991;Mathewson, 1999;Mayer & Anderson, 1991;Pozzer-Ardenghi & Roth, 2005). Specifically, considerable attention has been devoted to the role of representations in acquiring knowledge and understanding relationships and processes in science courses (Mandl & Levin, 1989).…”