How To Design Effective Learning Resources
Prevent cognitive overload and move towards learning mastery
I have just completed my MSc in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. Throughout the degree course I have realised that everything I thought I knew about designing meaningful online learning experience was wrong or at least flawed.
My early iterations of online learning contained jazzy videos with music, animations, text, images, video and voice. Sometimes all at the same time. The quantity of multimedia tools for me, seemed to be better than quality.
I realised that unless multimedia learning is driven by the science of how we learn, it will be a disengaging and flawed experience for the learner.
Creating is fun, but research-driven creation is better.
I write a lot about creativity and how creating within constraints can be a fruitful experience. One such constraint is using research.
Rather than that whizzing text, Bitmojis or text filled and narrated Power Points (all of which have very limited impact on learning and are not conducive to learner engagement), using research about the science behind multimedia learning will avoid wasting time creating educational content that just doesn’t land in terms of learning and is actually a proxy for learning. One reason for this is that the learner is a passive passenger in the learning as all that is required is that they listen to the sage on the stage.
Busy presentations of concepts can disconnect the learner from the concepts that are being taught. When the learner is made to process extraneous content, animations, text, voice and any other bells and whistles at the same time, the result can be that they will disconnect in more ways that one.
In the third edition of Multimedia Learning, Richard E. Mayer takes an evidence-based approach to improving education using well-designed multimedia instruction.
He reviews 15 principles of multimedia instructional design that are based on more than 200 experimental research studies and grounded in a cognitive theory of how people learn from words and graphics.
Here is a simple overview of Mayer’s 15 Principles of multimedia instructional design:
I made this short video to illustrate some of these ideas:
Mayer’s research into the principles of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning is essential to consider when trying to understand how humans process information and ultimately learn and achieve.
Mayer’s theory makes three assumptions:
1. The dual-channel assumption
2. The limited-capacity assumption
3. The active-processing assumption
The Dual-channel assumption
According to Mayer, the dual-channel assumption reveals that, ‘humans possess separate channels for processing visual and auditory information’. These channels include the visual-pictorial channel (this processes images seen through the eyes) and the auditory-verbal channel (this processes the spoken word).
The Limited-capacity assumption
The limited-capacity assumption revolves around the premise that humans have a maximum cognitive load that means that they can only process a certain amount of information at any given time. Mayer points to this limit being of perhaps five to seven ‘chunks’ of information that can be dealt with and processed at once for some people.
The Active-processing assumption
The active-processing assumption highlights the notion that humans do not learn through osmosis, i.e. by passively absorbing information. In order to learn, humans need to be active.
The importance of prior knowledge
Mayer points to the acts of selecting, organising, and integrating prior knowledge with new knowledge to create new or deeper meaning. Mayer’s constructivist interpretation of learning suggests that multimedia tools for learning and teaching are not simply delivery systems but are instead, cognitive aids for the construction of knowledge.
The learner’s construction of their mental model relies upon the instructor omitting what Mayer describes as ‘seductive details’ and instead focussing on simplicity prioritising the support of the learning goals.
Reducing overwhelm is essential while overburdening the learner’s cognitive load is undesirable according to Mayer.
When learners are only required to connect their prior learning with new learning they have the best chance of mastery learning.
Presentation, pacing and pre-training
A common theme throughout the principles of multimedia learning revolves around the idea of simultaneous presentation of text and images so that the learner is not forced to identify the meaning on their own.
Pacing and segmenting information is also key. Mayer points to the idea that learners learn best when they have control over the pace of the lesson. Being able to pause and replay video content or click through to the next slide or back to the previous slide creates such opportunities.
Mayer also highlights the benefits of the pre-training where instructors define key concepts before explaining them in greater detail. This helps learners secure a degree of prior knowledge onto which they can ‘pin’ the learning in the lessons.
In addition, narrated presentations with graphics are most effective for the learner, according to Mayer, when text is used sparingly.
Using text should be used when listing key steps, providing directions or references, or presenting information to non-native speakers.
When using images, Mayer contends that they should clarify meaning rather than just offer decoration. Conversational style is preferable for learners according to Mayer who points to the importance of cultivating a social response in the learner.
The use of the instructor’s face in an asynchronous video may be beneficial when trying to establish relationships and teacher presence, however Mayer advises that the instructor’s face should only be incorporated into such multimedia contexts where there are no words or pictures.
Limitations of Mayer’s research
Worthy of note is that Mayer contends that the
‘…design principles reviewed in this book may help low-experience learners but not help high-experience learners.’
This is interesting and something to consider. One of the most important things you need to do as an online or in-person teacher/instructor is to figure out what your students know before you begin teaching them. This will help with pitching the content and skills.
Several reviews have explored different ways of presenting information and teaching to maximise the learning experience. Means et al found no evidence that adding multimedia to online instruction had any impact on learning outcomes, concluding that the teaching was more important than the medium itself.
Reflective learners
There was, however, some evidence that supporting learners to reflect on their own learning had a positive impact. This suggests that effective online learning experiences using multimedia resources, whether synchronous or asynchronous, have the ability to ‘bring to life’ materials, ideas and concepts presented by high quality, personable instructors.
Mayer suggests that this is more pertinent to those learners with limited experience and where the instructor understands the learners’ prior knowledge. He argues that,
‘prior knowledge is the single most important individual difference dimension in instructional design. If you could know just one thing about a learner, you would want to know the learner’s prior knowledge in the domain’.
My takeaways from Mayer’s research are as follows:
- Avoid anything unnecessary on a page/presentation.
- Using your voice is good; using your face is unnecessary as it doesn’t impact learning.
- Keep it short.
Ultimately, anything that looks nice and seems fun but does not contribute to learning should be left out. This feels harsh to say especially when time and effort is taken by some instructors to create aesthetically driven and pleasing experiences.
It is well-intentioned when instructors spend time creating detailed PowerPoint slides that they narrate and click through either in person or online, but the creation of learning experiences must place the learner at the centre if there is to be any sense of meaningful learning…and that means that they should be able to be an active participant in their learning.
Listening and processing text, images, video, the teacher’s face, their Bitmoji and hyperlinks to videos results in cognitive overload and disengagement of the learner from the content and skills that are being taught. Empathetic understanding of where your learner is, how much they can cope with and what you can omit is what should drive instructional design, at least in education.
The processing capacity of individual learners needs to be understood before instructional design can begin.
Using Universal Design for Learning (read my blog on UDL here) can help to address this issue. Providing multiple iterations of the same content can widen access to the message that you are trying to convey.
What I have learned
I’ve made hundreds of videos and online learning experiences over the past 12 months. Some are better than others, but along the way I’ve learned that it is essential to understand that sometimes what learners and instructors think is learning is an illusion of learning. This can lead to over estimations by the instructor of what has been accomplished and by the learner who may believe that they have a deeper understanding of a topic or skill than they have in reality.
If the illusion of learning is not considered by the instructor it will lead to the continued development of the same mode of delivery and stunt the progress and mastery learning of the learner.
In order to demonstrate some of Mayer’s Principles of Multimedia Learning, I wanted to share a video I made. This video is just over a minute long and though storytelling it conveys what I believe to be a powerful message about the meaning of life.
The video begins with a basic idea: the circle. This is an understood shape by most ages of people and so allows immediate access to the concept of the video. With the average attention span of an individual being around the 8 second mark, no viewer will drop off in this time frame because of a lack of understanding:
For the most part, the video includes moving images and voice narration. There is only one short segment with text. As this text appears, I speak the same words so that the learner is only processing one idea.
This design strategy is driven by Mayer’s Voice principle and his Redundancy principle which requires instructors to reduce extraneous processing. The short text shown on the screen is also framed so that the learner can see this is being signalled as important.
This links to Mayer’s Signalling principle and the Temporal Contiguity Principle which advises to present corresponding narration and animation simultaneously not successively.
I do not appear in the video because it would not have added anything to the learning and may have served as a distraction as learners try to watch my facial cues, listen to my voice and process a moving image or text at the same time. I use a conversational tone and use ‘You’, employing the Personalisation principle.
I hope you found this article interesting and valuable. Follow me for more articles on instructional design, teaching and wellbeing.
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References
R. E. Mayer Multimedia learning (3rd ed.), 2020 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press).
Barbara Means, Yukie Toyama, Robert Murphy, and Marianne Baki, The Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature. Teachers College Record, 2013 115(3), pp 23.
