Myths of Educational Multimedia User Interface Design

1. Myths of Educational Multimedia User Interface Design Larry Najjar gt4708d@prism.gatech.edu

2. Educational Multimedia • Use of text, graphics, sound, photographs, and video to help people learn

3. Outline • Larry presents myth. • You decide whether myth generally true or false. • Larry describes what research suggests. • At end, we summarize scores.

4. Myth 1 • “People generally remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, [and] 50% of what they hear and see...” (Treichler, 1967, p. 15).

5. Myth 1 • False. • Although widely used, this quote is completely unsupported.

6. Myth 2 • People prefer multimedia user interfaces.

7. Myth 2 • Generally true.

8. Myth 3 • People learn better from traditional classroom lectures than from computer-based multimedia tutorials.

9. Myth 3 • Generally false. • People can learn better and faster with computer-based multimedia tutorials.

10. Myth 4 • The medium used to communicate the information affects learning.

11. Myth 4 • Generally true. • Some media better than others for learning specific info. • pictures for spatial info • auditory narration for short info for short time • text for longer verbal info for longer time

12. Myth 5 • Multimedia improves learning better than “monomedia.”

13. Myth 5 • Generally true. • Redundant verbal and pictorial multimedia (e.g., text with picture) generally more effective than text alone or picture alone. • Redundant verbal multimedia (e.g., text with audio narration) generally not more effective than text alone or audio narration alone

14. Myth 6 • Due to novelty and learner stimulation, learning improves when there are many different media in the educational application.

15. Myth 6 • Generally false. • Media improve learning only when used in highly-related, supportive way. • unrelated illustrations do not improve learning; related illustrations do

16. Myth 7 • Interactive user interfaces improve learning.

17. Myth 7 • Generally true. • But interactivity must encourage learner to process the info.

18. Myth 8 • Humor helps people to learn.

19. Myth 8 • Generally false. • Humor can distract learners.

20. Myth 9 • Providing external rewards improves learning.

21. Myth 9 • Generally false. • External motivation does not improve learning, but internal motivation does.

22. Myth 10 • Multimedia helps all learners to learn.

23. Myth 10 • Generally false. • Multimedia most effective for naive learners and learners with lower aptitude.

24. Myth 11 • For recognition, text is better than pictures.

25. Myth 11 • Generally false. • Picture recognition is much better than text recognition.

26. Myth 12 • The kind of info (e.g., verbal, pictorial) required to complete a test should match the kind of info used to present the original info.

27. Myth 12 • Generally true. • Due to transfer-appropriate processing, people do better on verbal tests when they study verbal info.

28. Conclusion • Multimedia can help people to learn -- sometimes.

29. For More Info • http://mime1.marc.gatech.edu/imb/people/larry_pubs.html • Larry Najjar’s e-mail address: gt4708d@prism.gatech.edu