Support for Learning from Multimedia Explanations. A Comparison of Prompting, Signaling, and Questioning

Abstract

In one experiment 97 undergraduate students learned about plate tectonics from a multimedia presentation involving narrated animations and support in one of four forms. Support in the prompting condition included hints inducing participants to self-explain critical information. The signaling condition included overviews recapping critical information. The questioning condition included questions about critical information and feedback on participants' answers. The control condition included no support. Participants in the questioning condition outperformed those in the rest of conditions in retention and transfer. This means that questioning is a very powerful technique for promoting multimedia learning.

Questioning as an Instructional Strategy in Multimedia Environments

“…Questioning was an effective strategy, as indicated by the fact that the participants receiving interactive questioning episodes generated more correct solutions for the retention and transfer tests than those who received no questioning episodes. This is in line with prior findings (Campbell & Mayer, 2009;Garcia-Rodicio, 2014;Mayer et al, 2009). Overall, these results suggest that questioning effectively makes students actively organize and integrate what they have learn and to adjust their understanding in the light of feedback, achieving deeper learning (Campbell & Mayer, 2009).…”

“…One of these features is questioning, through which students are posed with questions and get feedback on their answers. There is evidence that the environments which include questioning work more effectively than those which do not (Campbell & Mayer, 2009;Garcia-Rodicio, 2014). Although questioning is initially interactive (feedback is dependent on the student's answer), it is also possible to present questioning in a noninteractive form, in which a set of possible answers is shown and the feedback for each answer is presented subsequently.…”

“…One type of interactivity in these environments is questioning, by which questions are posed to students and feedback is provided on their answers. Prior research has shown that questioning is effective in promoting multimedia learning (Garcia-Rodicio, 2014). The point is that questioning can be also presented in a noninteractive way: One can pose the question to the student, show a set of possible answers, and provide feedback for each one, without requiring the student to choose any option in particular.…”