Meta-analysis of the modality effect

Does animation enhance learning? A meta-analysis

“…This latter case, also known as "modality principle" (Mayer & Moreno, 1998;Mayer, 2001;Moreno & Mayer, 1999), is in line with the large body of research showing that verbal information should be displayed in auditory mode since it offloads the visual processing channel that can then be allocated to the deep processing of the visual material (for a review, see Ginns, 2005). More surprising is the large positive animation effect when the instructional material did not include any accompanying textual information.…”

“…Most studies found a modality effect (Ginns, 2005;Mayer, 2005;SchmidtWeigand, 2005) with learning being enhanced when the visualization was coupled with narration instead of written text. The usual explanation, based on Baddeley's (1993) model of a working memory with limited capacity and the cognitive load theory (Sweller, Paas, van Merri€ enboer, & Paas, 1998), states that distributing the processing load across two sensory channels increases working memory capacity compared to visual processing only (Moreno & Mayer, 1999;Sweller et al, 1998).…”

“…While the conditions of its instructional effectiveness are still unclear, the factors that influence the processing of animation have been largely identified. Three categories may be distinguished; those a) specific to the learners, such as their prior knowledge level (ChanLin, 1998;Kalyuga, 2008) and visuospatial ability (Hegarty & Sims, 1994;Lowe & Boucheix, 2009;Yang, Andre, & Greenbowe, 2003), b) specific to the instructional material, such as the type of dynamic changes within the animation (Lowe, 2003), its perceptual salience (Lowe & Boucheix, 2009;Schnotz & Lowe, 2003), the presence of accompanying information (Ginns, 2005;Moreno & Mayer, 1999;Tabbers, 2001) or the control over the pace of the animation (Fischer, Lowe, & Schwan, 2007;Mayer & Chandler, 2001), and c) specific to the learning context e e.g., the type of knowledge and the instructional domain Schneider, 2007).…”

Towards a Framework for Attention Cueing in Instructional Animations: Guidelines for Research and Design

“…Many interacting elements of information are involved in such search and tracing tasks, which may interfere with learning-related activities. Cognitive load theory suggests that learning may be facilitated by physically integrating the two sources of information to reduce the need for mental integration (Chandler and Sweller 1991) or by presenting information in different modalities, that is, the combined use of visual and auditory channels (see Ginns 2005 for a review on the modality effect). Nevertheless, in complex tasks involving many information elements, learners still may be unable to find the visual referents and establish a link between corresponding elements in the verbal and nonverbal representations.…”

Integrating information from two pictorial animations: Complexity and cognitive prerequisites influence performance

“…Several of these principles, for example the spatial and temporal contiguity principles that describe the importance of an integrated presentation of learning materials, have been shown to be empirically well grounded (Ginns, 2005(Ginns, , 2006. To date, the models mentioned above have concentrated on the integrative processing of simultaneously presented text and pictorial information (Schnotz & Bannert, 2003).…”