Ch 7' Coherence Principle

1
Ch 7. Coherence Principle

• Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia Learning.
  Cambridge University Press.
• 2004/2/23 ???

2
Outline

• Introduction
• Coherence Principles
• Student learning is hurt when
• 1. interesting but irrelevant words pictures
  are added to a multimedia presentation.
• 2. interesting but irrelevant sounds music are
  added to a multimedia presentation.
• Student learning is improved when
• 3. unneeded words are eliminated from a
  multimedia presentation.

3
Introduction

• Coherence refers to the structural relations
  among elements in a message, such as a
  cause-and-effect chain.
• A coherence effect occurs when students better
  understand an explanation from multimedia lesson
  containing less material.
• Three variations of the theme in this research
• Adding interesting but irrelevant text or
  illustrations.
• Adding interesting but extraneous sounds or
  music.
• Removing nonessential words.

4
Coherence Principles

• Student learning is hurt when interesting but
  irrelevant words pictures are added.
• Student learning is hurt when interesting but
  irrelevant sounds music are added.
• Student learning is improved when unneeded words
  are eliminated.

5
The case for adding interesting words pictures

• The inserted material has topical relevance but
  it lacks conceptual relevance.

6
The theory for adding interesting words
pictures

• Arousal theory students learn better when they
  are emotionally aroused by the material.
• According to arousal theory, learners pay more
  attention and learn more overall.
• Whats wrong with arousal theory?
• Its based on an outmoded view of learning as
  information acquisition.

7
The theory against adding interesting words
pictures (1/2)

• Dewey (1913) argued against viewing interest as
  an ingredient that could be added to spice up
  boring lesson.
• Cognitive interest (Kintsch, 1980) students
  enjoy lessons that they can understand. ?
  cognition affects emotion.

8
The theory against adding interesting words
pictures (2/2)

• According to cognitive theory,
• The presence of seductive details may direct the
  learners attention away from the relevant
  material.
• The insertion of seductive details within the
  explanation may disrupt the learners ability to
  build a cause-and-effect chain.
• The learners may assume that the theme of the
  passage comes from the seductive details.

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Research 1Coherence effects for retention

• Coherence effect for retention students perform
  more poorly when seductive details are added.
• Elimination interesting but irrelevant materials
  from a lesson helps students to better remember
  the remaining material.

10
Research 1Coherence effects for transfer

• Coherence effects for transfer because adding
  interesting but irrelevant material resulted in
  poorer problem-solving transfer performance.
• This research shows that less is more.

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Related Research

• Seductive details do not enhance students
  remembering of the main ideas in the passage
  (Garner et al., 1989, 1992 Hidi Baird, 1998
  Mohr, Glover, Ronning, 1984 Shirey, 1992
  Shirey Reynolds, 1988 Wade, 1992 Wade
  Adams, 1990).
• Students tend to be able to remember the
  seductive details better than remember the
  central ideas in the passage (Garner et al.,
  1991, 1992 Hidi Anderson, 1992 Hidi Baird,
  1986).

12
The case for adding interesting sounds music

• Add a short instrumental music loop that plays
  continuously in the background.
• The music and sounds are gentle and do not
  interfere with the narration.
• Arousal theory
• Music and sound can increase the learners level
  of emotional arousal.
• Whats wrong with this approach?
• Adding music and sounds can interfere with
  sense-making process.

13
The case against adding interesting sounds
music

• When additional auditory information is
  presented, it competes with the narration for
  limited processing capacity in the auditory
  channel.

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Research 2Coherence effects for retention
transfer
For retention
For transfer
15
Related Research

• Research on childrens television examines how
  viewers attention can be guided through the use
  of audio features (Anderson Lorch, 1983 Kozma,
  1991).
• It does suggest that auditory features of a
  presentation may guide the learners attention
  toward specific content.

16
The case for retaining unneeded words

• Information delivery hypothesis
• Students learn more when they receive information
  via more routes.
• It seems that students will learn more from a
  full presentation than from a summary.

17
The case against retaining unneeded words

• Cognitive theory
• Learners actively make sense out of the presented
  material by selecting relevant information,
  organizing it into a coherent representation, and
  linking it with other knowledge.
• The summary greatly facilitates this process
  because the key words are in the captions, they
  are presented in order, and they are presented
  near the corresponding illustration.

18
Research 3Coherence effects for retention
transfer

• Material
• Eliminate the text passage and present learners
  with only the captioned illustrations.

For retention
For transfer
19
Related Research

• Earlier research
• College students remember more important material
  from reading chapter summaries than from reading
  entire textbook chapters (Reder Anderson, 1980).

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Implications for multimedia learning

• In the case of multimedia lessons, students tend
  to learn more when less is presented because
• Learner are actively trying to make sense of the
  presented material by building a coherent metal
  representation.
• Given the limits on working memory, cognitive
  resources must be diverted to process the
  irrelevant material.
• When extraneous information is highly salient,
  learners may organize incoming material around
  the theme of the extraneous material.

21
Implications for multimedia design

• Avoid seemingly interesting words, pictures, and
  sounds that are not relevant to the lessons main
  conceptual message.
• Keep the presentation short and to the point.
• Needed elaboration should be presented after the
  learner has constructed a coherent mental
  representation of the basic cause-and-effect
  system.