We investigated the instructional effectiveness of using an interactive and immersive virtual reality (IVR) simulation versus a video for teaching scientific knowledge in 2 between-subjects experiments. In Experiment 1, 131 high school students (84 females) used a science simulation that involved forensic analysis of a collected DNA sample in a…

In 2 experiments, college students read a 4-paragraph text on how the human circulatory system works and were instructed to form a mental image of the events described in each paragraph from the perspective of their own body (first-person perspective group) or from the perspective of a fictitious person facing them (third-person perspective…

Previous studies have shown that students learn better from an online lesson when a gesturing pedagogical agent is added (Mayer & DaPra, 2012; Wang, Li, Mayer, & Liu, 2018). The goal of this study is to pinpoint which aspect of a gesturing pedagogical agent causes an improvement in learning from an online lesson. College students learned…

The main objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a medium for delivering laboratory safety training. We specifically compare an immersive VR simulation, a desktop VR simulation, and a conventional safety manual. The sample included 105 first year undergraduate engineering students (56 females).…

This study tested 3 instructor presence features in learning from video lectures: dynamic drawings, eye contact with the camera, and instructor visibility. In 2 experiments, college students watched a video lecture about the human kidney, which consisted of a series of drawings and a spoken explanation from the instructor, and then took a written…

This study investigated the effectiveness of adding four self-efficacy features to an online statistics lesson, based on Bandura's four sources of self-efficacy information. In a randomized between-subjects experiment, participants learned statistical rules in an example-based online environment with four self-efficacy features added (treatment…

In three experiments, students received a short science lesson on how airplanes achieve lift and then were asked to write an explanation (retention test) and solutions to five problems (transfer test). For some students, the lesson contained signals such as section headings and pointer words. Students given signals generated significantly more…

In two experiments, students received two presentations of a narrated animation explaining how lightning forms, followed by retention and transfer tests. The goal was to determine possible benefits of incorporating a modest amount of computer-user interactivity within a multimedia explanation. Results were consistent with cognitive load theory and…

Students received a personalized or nonpersonalized version of a narrated animation explaining how the human respiratory system works. The narration for the nonpersonalized version was in formal style, whereas the narration for the personalized version was in conversational style in which "the" was changed to "your" in 12 places. In 3 experiments,…