Background: After the mandated closure and reopening of schools during and after the coronavirus pandemic, online synchronous teaching and learning has emerged as an opportunity to expand the reach of K-12 education, however, there is a lack of understanding about the characteristics of the successful learning experiences during that period that…

Background: The voices virtual on-screen characters use has been shown to impact learning and perception outcomes. Recent replication research on these voices showed that synthetic voices were not a detriment if produced by a high-quality engine with clear articulation. The current manuscript examines previous accent research that utilized now…

Background: Being easy to learn and fun, block-based programming tools are widely used to teach students introductory programming. Scratch and LEGO robots are two popular block-based programming tools. However, the objects they manipulate are completely different. Scratch manipulates graphical virtual sprites, whereas LEGO robots manipulate…

Background: Previous studies on augmented reality-enriched learning and training indicated conflicting results regarding the cognitive load involved: some authors report that AR can reduce cognitive load, others have shown that AR is perceived as cognitively demanding and can lead to poorer performance. Objectives: The aim of this study is to…

Background: Recent research in online settings reports that supporting self-regulated learning (SRL) strategy use could lead to greater online academic success. A growing number of studies have started to investigate SRL supports in online environments recently, which indicates a great interest in this matter. Though several systems for automatic…

Background: In example-based learning, examples are often combined with generative activities, such as comparative self-explanations of example cases. Comparisons induce heavy demands on working memory, especially in complex domains. Hence, only stronger learners may benefit from comparative self-explanations. While static text-based examples can…

Background: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many teachers found themselves making a rapid and often challenging shift from in-person classroom teaching to teaching in an online environment. As teachers continue to learn about working in this new environment, research in cognitive and learning sciences, specifically findings from cognitive…

Multimedia instruction, the combination of pictures and words to produce meaningful learning, involves attention, selection, organization, and integration of new information with previously learned information. Because there is a large, theory-based literature supporting the effectiveness of multimedia instruction, we proposed that multimedia…

Virtual reality (VR) can promote design performance, and may generate a high cognitive load and affect creative design thinking as well. In order to examine the effect of VR application on cognitive load and engineering design creativity, this study recruited 81 eighth-grade students as participants and employed a non-equivalent-groups…

Background: With the increasing popularity of distance education, how to engage students in online inquiry-based laboratories remains challenging for science teachers. Current remote labs mostly adopt a centralized model with limited flexibility left for teachers' just-in-time instruction based on students' real-time science practices. Objectives:…

Background: Virtual reality (VR) is considered a promising approach to support learning. An instructional design is essential to optimize cognitive processes. Studies show that VR has unique instructional and pedagogical requirements. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of the modality principle, which was previously…

An instructor's gestures have an effect not only on students' learning but also on teaching itself. In two experiments, this study tested whether instructors' use of gestures while recording video lectures affected their teaching performance, stress, and cognitive load. In Experiment 1, participants recorded video lectures with gestures or without…

Background study: Although the number of computer-based instruction has increased drastically, the understanding of how design features of learning modality can affect learning remains incomplete. This partly stems from studies' heavy focus on modified output. Therefore, how interactive nature of computer-mediated learning feeds into learning is…

Background: Some studies have researched the correlation between flipped learning and cognitive learning outcomes; however, there is a paucity of research elaborating on the effects of flipped language learning on cognitive load (CL). Objectives: This study investigates the effects of using flipped learning designs (student-led, teacher-led and…

Multiple external representations (MERs) play an important role in the learning field of mathematics. Whereas the cognitive theory of multimedia learning and the integrative text and picture comprehension model assume that the heterogeneous combination of symbolic and analogous representations fosters learning; the design, functions, and tasks…