A testing effect occurs when a learner performs better on a retention test after studying the material and taking a practice-retention test than after studying the material twice. In the present study, 282 participants watched a narrated animation about lightning formation and then watched the presentation again (restudy), took a…

This paper examines the transferability of successful cueing approaches from text and static visualization research to animations. Theories of visual attention and learning as well as empirical evidence for the instructional effectiveness of attention cueing are reviewed and, based on Mayer's theory of multimedia learning, a framework was…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of interactive multimedia simulations and virtual dissection software on depth of learning among students participating in biology and chemistry laboratory courses. By understanding more about how simulation and virtual dissection software changes depth of learning, educators will have the…

Introduction: This article examined the effect of multimedia instruction on students' learning outcomes (achievement and interest) in secondary school physics. Method: The sample comprised of 517 (294 boys and 223 girls) students who came from 12 senior secondary schools in Ibadan Educational Zone 1, Oyo State, Nigeria. Their ages ranged between…

The present study represented an effort to improve on the outcomes of the Puma (2006) study by creating a writing process program that provided students with compelling video models of effective writing practices in small writing teams. In this method, called Writing Wings with Media (WWM), students worked in 4-member, heterogeneous writing groups…

This study attempts to investigate whether a difference exists between learning vocabulary via animation and via traditional paper-based method. This small scale study was conducted at Karadeniz Technical University in academic year 2009-2010. Two pre-intermediate classes were randomly selected as the experimental group (n = 17), and control group…

The purpose of the study reported on here was to explore ways in which the interactive whiteboard (IWB) can support students' understanding of texts. A Year 3 and a Year 4 primary school class in New South Wales, Australia, is the focus of the research. A qualitative case study was carried out using multimodal analysis focusing on the use of an…

This study investigated how the format of verbal instructions in computer simulations and prior knowledge (PK) affected 8th graders' cognitive load (CL) level and achievement in a multimedia learning environment. Although PK was not found to significantly affect student performance and CL level, instruction format was found to impact both.…

Computer simulations and animations for developing statistical concepts are often not understood by beginners. Hands-on physical simulations that morph into computer simulations are teaching approaches that can build students' concepts. In this paper we review the literature on visual and verbal cognitive processing and on the efficacy of…

Artificial intelligence research on creative design has led to Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) models that emphasize functions as abstractions for organizing understanding of physical systems. Empirical studies on understanding complex systems suggest that novice understanding is shallow, typically focusing on their visible structures and…

Technological developments have affected teachers' instructional techniques: technology has allowed the concept of education to be viewed from different perspectives. The aim of this research is to integrate Web 2.0 tools, which are sparsely found on the internet (each tool is on a different site), into education and see if it positively affects…

Background: There are over two billion telephones in use worldwide. Yet, for millions of Americans with intellectual disabilities (ID), access to the benefits of cellphone technology is limited because of deficits in literacy, numerical comprehension, the proliferation of features and shrinking size of cellphone hardware and user interfaces.…

This article investigates if WebQuests have been an effective instructional tool for teaching Social Sciences subjects. In order to obtain an answer to this question, a review of scholarly literature from 1995 to the present has been undertaken and action research in 8th grade U.S. history course was conducted. The literature investigation has…

Studies on using still images and dynamic videos in multimedia annotations produced inconclusive results. A further examination, however, showed that the principle of using videos to explain complex concepts was not observed in the previous studies. This study was intended to investigate whether videos, compared with pictures, better assist…

Multimedia augmented with tangible objects is an area that has not been explored. Current multimedia systems lack the natural elements that allow young children to learn tangibly and intuitively. In view of this, we propose a research to merge tangible objects with multimedia for preschoolers, and propose to term it as "tangible…