Background: How to improve learning with online multimedia lessons has attracted widespread concern. Prior studies have attempted to help students learn by breaking a video lesson into several segments. However, there has been a debate about whether learners can use pause time effectively and whether prompting them to engage in different types of…

This study explored ways to foster generative learning during a narrated video lesson about the human kidney. In a 2 × 3 between-subjects design, 196 college students were randomly assigned to a video format condition and a learning strategy condition. Students listened to oral explanations from the instructor as they viewed either a series of…

This study examined the impacts of 2 different graphic organizers (filled-in graphic organizers and interactive graphic organizers) on middle school students' learning processes, outcomes, experiences, and preferences. In Experiment 1, 60 students were assigned to read a short expository passage in 1 of 3 conditions: text-only, filled-in graphic…

As immersive virtual reality (IVR) systems proliferate in classrooms, it is important to understand how they affect learning outcomes and the underlying affective and cognitive processes that may cause these outcomes. Proponents argue that IVR could improve learning by increasing positive affective and cognitive processing, thereby supporting…

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…

The goal of the present study is to determine how to incorporate social cues such as gesturing in animated pedagogical agents (PAs) for online multimedia lessons in ways that promote student learning. In 3 experiments, college students learned about synaptic transmission from a multimedia narrated presentation while their eye movements were…

Asking students to imagine the spatial arrangement of the elements in a scientific text constitutes a learning strategy intended to foster deep processing of the instructional material. Two experiments investigated the effects of mental imagery prompts on learning from scientific text. Students read a computer-based text on the human respiratory…

In 4 experiments, participants viewed a short video-based lesson about how the Doppler effect works. Some students viewed already-drawn diagrams while listening to a concurrent oral explanation, whereas other students listened to the same explanation while viewing the instructor actually draw the diagrams by hand. All students then completed…

In Experiment 1, students received an illustrated booklet, PowerPoint presentation, or narrated animation that explained 6 steps in how a cold virus infects the human body. The material included 6 high-interest details mainly about the role of viruses in sex or death (high group) or 6 low-interest details consisting of facts and health tips about…

College students viewed a short multimedia PowerPoint presentation consisting of 16 narrated slides explaining lightning formation (Experiment 1) or 8 narrated slides explaining how a car's braking system works (Experiment 2). Each slide appeared for approximately 8-10 s and contained a diagram along with 1-2 sentences of narration spoken in a…

In 2 experiments, learners who were seated at a computer workstation received a narrated animation about lightning formation. Then, they took a retention test, a transfer test, and rated the speaker. The results are consistent with social agency theory, which posits that social cues in multimedia messages can encourage learners to interpret…