Attention cueing as a means to enhance learning from an animation

Abstract

The question how animations should be designed so that learning is optimised, is still under discussion. Animations are often cognitively very demanding, resulting in decreased learning outcomes. In this study, we tried to prevent cognitive overload and foster learning by focusing the learners' attention to one element (i.e. process) of an animation using a cueing technique. Psychology students viewed an animation of the cardiovascular system and were subsequently given a comprehension test and a transfer test. One group studied the animation without a visual cue, while for another group a visual cue was added to the animation. Results indicated that cueing not only enhanced comprehension and transfer performance for cued information, but also for uncued information. It is concluded that cueing can be used as a technique to improve learning from an animation. Results are interpreted in terms of cognitive load theory (CLT).

Does active or passive signaling support integration of text and graphs?

“…Contributing to the literature on instructional support for multimedia learning environments, this study focused on the effects of passive Based on the positive effect of passive signaling in multimedia learning studies, we expected especially students with low prior knowledge to benefit when learning from signaled material (H 1 and H 3 ). However, in contrast to previous studies (Koning et al, 2007;Mautone & Mayer, 2007), learners independent of their prior knowledge did not profit when learning from material where correspondent information was highlighted. This finding is astonishing given the abundant evidence in favor of the signaling effect in learning from multiple representations especially for novice learners (Alpizar et al, 2020;Richter et al, 2016).…”

Animated pedagogical agents as aids in multimedia learning: Effects on eye-fixations during learning and learning outcomes.

“…Overall, based on eye-tracking measures, both gesturing (i.e., having an agent point to relevant parts of the graphic) and signaling (i.e., having relevant parts of the graphic turn red) tended to be helpful for guiding learners’ attention, with the poorest performance from the group that received neither type of cue. These results are partially consistent with Experiment 2 in which gesture can guide learner’s attention and also are consistent with previous research (Boucheix & Lowe, 2010; de Koning et al, 2007; Ozcelik et al, 2009) where physical cues in multimedia learning can guide learner’s attention.…”

Attention guidance in learning from a complex animation: Seeing is understanding?

“…In all conditions learners generated a rather low number of explanatory statements (approximately two out of 15). Further, we did not replicate the results of De Koning et al (2007) with respect to the learning outcome measures (Hypotheses 5a and 5b) and we did not find support for the hypothesis that answering to comprehension and transfer tests requires less mental effort (Hypothesis 5c), which is not surprising given the small cueing-effect in the verbal report data and the modest statistical power of the present study. Additionally, the positioning of the cued retrospective protocols before the learning test may have provided learners the opportunity to employ activities that produce a greater cognitive engagement (e.g., giving explanations of their thought processes) thus overshadowing any effects of cueing.…”