At its core, the theory asserts that people learn more effectively from words and graphics than from words alone. While numerous investigators have contributed to this work, we have found Mayer’s (2009) empirically derived principles of multimedia design, to be the most relevant and useful for instructional designers and educators.
What is multimedia instruction?
It is not a video! Multimedia instruction (also referred to as “educational multimedia”) refers to teaching and learning material that contain words (e.g., spoken or printed text) and images (e.g., illustrations, charts, photos, animation, video) (Mayer 2009). Multimedia instruction therefore has relevance well beyond a video-based lesson – it can inform our teaching over a broad range of visual and audio modalities, from what we sketch on a chalkboard while lecturing to how we construct a diagram we create for a handout in class, or the design of a power-point slide to use in class.
What is cognitive load?
Cognitive load is a central concept critical to cognitive load theory and highly relevant to learning and instructional design (Sweller 1994, 1999). Cognitive load refers to the “cognitive processing demands” placed on a learner in the context of the limitations of working memory.
Just as Mayer adapted the cognitive load theory to multimedia learning, he contextualized the goals above using principles that were established based on empirical data. We expand on these three strategies below:
Mayer (2009) identified five principles, based on empirical evidence, to reduce extraneous overload in the context of educational multimedia: (a) Coherence, (b) Redundancy, (c) Signaling, (d) Spatial contiguity, (e) Temporal contiguity.
The Coherence Principle
Eliminating distracting and unnecessary material (e.g., humorous graphics or irrelevant animations) results in better learning. Simplify learner workflows and eliminate unnecessary content.
The Redundancy Principle
“People learn more deeply from graphics and narration than from graphics, narration, and on-screen text” (Mayer 2009). Learners may focus on the printed words rather than the relevant portions of the graphics and can expend limited processing capacity in working by trying to reconcile the two verbal streams of information.
The Signaling Principle
Signaling what’s important, through visual organization and cues (e.g., outline, headings, highlighting) can reduce the attentive and cognitive load on the learner and free up working memory space for intrinsic or germane cognitive processing.
The Spatial Contiguity Principle
Presenting information close to its media counterparts reduces the amount of time and cognitive effort the learner must invest to separate out and connect the relevant pieces of information enabling better cognitive processing.
The Temporal Contiguity Principle
“People learn more deeply from a multimedia message when corresponding graphics and narration are presented simultaneously rather than successively” (Mayer 2009). Sensory and WM are limited in terms of both time and capacity! We can only hold information in these memories for mere seconds. When complimentary pieces of information are presented near each other in time, the learner can spend more of that time capacity working to organize the new information and assimilate knowledge.
The Image Principle
“People do not necessarily learn more deeply from a multimedia message when the speaker’s image is visible on screen (Mayer 2009). Every instant of a multimedia message is information that must either be assimilated or rejected by working memory – the teacher’s face isn’t always integral to learning the material and doesn’t necessarily result in greater learning. This should be weighed with affective considerations.
The Segmenting Principle
Segmenting allows learners to fully process one “chunk” of the learning experience, before having to move onto the next one. If we chunk our content into manageable chunks (defined by the content complexity and learner level), learners can more efficiently manage essential cognitive processing.
The Pre-training Principle
Providing students with definitions and main characteristics of key elements in a lesson, frees up cognitive capacity for more important essential cognitive tasks, such as understanding the relationships between pieces of information, integrating new information into existing schema, and creating new schema.
The Modality Principle
“People learn more deeply from a multimedia message when the words are spoken rather than printed” (Mayer 2009) Spreading complimentary information across the verbal and visual channels can be more efficient than using just one of them. Consider a diagram with adjacent text versus voice narration. With voice narration, the visual channel can be used to process the diagram, while the verbal channel can be used for the information that would have been in the adjacent text.
The Personalization Principle
“People learn better from multimedia lessons when words are in conversational style rather than formal style ” (Mayer 2009) An informal conversational style established an environment of “social proximity” and “social presence” between educator and learner. This contributes to enhancing learner motivation to engage meaningfully and participate in active learning.
The Voice Principle
“People learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice” (Mayer 2009). Similar to the personalization principle, a human voice contributes to “social proximity” and “social presence” between educator and learner.
The Embodiment Principle
“We learn more effectively when the instructors on screen in a multimedia lesson demonstrate movement, eye contact, facial expression and convey genuine human connectedness through physical gestures” (Mayer 2009).