Multimedia Presentations of Mitosis: An Examination of Split-Attention, Modality, Redundancy, and Cueing

Abstract

Multimedia presentations that combine visual and verbal information are widely used for instructional purposes. While the design of the text-graphic relationship is difficult, several design strategies with the potential to reduce cognitive load have been identified in the literature. The purpose of this study is to examine how split-attention, modality, redundancy, and cueing influence how both high and low prior knowledge participants view and learn from four different multimedia presentations on mitosis. The findings indicate that low prior knowledge learners were more prone to cognitive overload with split-attention and redundant designs. While there were no differences in learning gains among the presentations compared for high prior knowledge students, these learners did not prefer the narrated presentation. More research is necessary on how to best design multimedia presentations for diverse learners.