Question One: How do the multimedia principles presented by Clark and Meyer (2011) help designers make good decisions to help students learn through visual literacy? Which principles would be most important to consider when building an online tutorial.
In their work, Clark and Mayer (2011) formulated six specific principles that are used in e-learning, such as the multimedia principle, the modality principle, the contiguity principle, the redundancy principle, the coherence principle, and the personalization principle. They can be discussed as effective to help designers organize the learning materials for students with a focus on visual literacy.
The reason is that each principle explains how visuals can be used in the teaching-learning process efficiently. Furthermore, the multimedia principles provide direct guidelines on how to integrate the text and visuals in learning (Mayer, 2011). Thus, designers receive the information regarding connections that they need to represent between words and the text, modes that they should use to address the visual literacy, places where graphics should be added, structures of the graphics, the relationship between texts and visuals, and specific features of visuals that can add to learning, such as the use of static or motion pictures.
While composing an online tutorial, such principles as the multimedia principle, the contiguity principle, and the personalization principle can be discussed as most important. According to the multimedia principle, it is necessary to decide how visuals will be used to support the verbal information in a tutorial (Clark & Mayer, 2011). The contiguity principle allows for organizing the information and relating graphics and texts to each other in order to guarantee that learners can examine visuals easily while developing their knowledge. According to the personalization principle, the conversational style supported by the use of visuals allows for a better understanding of the text.
Question Two: Do visuals make a difference? What do research and cognitive theory suggest? Do you agree with the theories of the aforementioned authors and why? Please respond to these questions using professional or personal examples to support.
In order to state whether visuals can make a difference in learning, it is necessary to analyze their roles from the perspective of the cognitive theory. It is important to note that the use of visuals contributes to the learning process because they stimulate the persons’ active learning, as well as the individuals’ abilities in making connections between texts and constructs (Clark & Mayer, 2011).
According to the principles of the cognitive load theory, learners understand the material and react to it better when the ease perception of this material is guaranteed (Leahy & Sweller, 2011). In this context, a learner should have an opportunity to perceive the information and make connections and conclusions easily (De Jong, 2010). Visuals can be used for this purpose effectively because persons perceive information from different sources, and the visual channel allows for adding different meanings to texts, explaining the relationships between concepts, organizing the material, and structuring it with the help of charts or graphs (Soon Fook & Aldalalah, 2010).
It is possible to agree with the researchers’ ideas regarding the relevance of using both visuals and texts in learning in order to ensure a complete understanding of the material. For instance, when learners use visuals, they can understand the material better because they do not need to imagine illustrative parts of the text, but they can focus on studying the relationships or processes. Those individuals who are taught with the help of integrated texts and visuals usually demonstrate the higher results in their learning because of the complex perception of the information (Florax & Ploetzner, 2010). Furthermore, organizational visuals are effective to structure the information and organize the whole learning process while providing persons with an additional opportunity for memorizing the material.
References
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
De Jong, T. (2010). Cognitive load theory, educational research, and instructional design: Some food for thought. Instructional Science, 38(2), 105-134.
Florax, M., & Ploetzner, R. (2010). What contributes to the split-attention effect? Role of text segmentation, picture labeling, and spatial proximity. Learning and Instruction, 20(1), 216-224.
Leahy, W., & Sweller, J. (2011). Cognitive load theory, the modality of presentation and the transient information effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(6), 943-951.
Mayer, R. E. (2011). Applying the science of learning to multimedia instruction. Psychology of Learning and Motivation-Advances in Research and Theory, 55(1), 77-89.
Soon Fook, F., & Aldalalah, O. (2010). Effects of computer-based instructional designs among internals-externals: A cognitive load perspective. European Journal of Social Science, 14(12), 164-182.