MANUSCRIPT: A Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning: Implications for Design Principles
In multimedia learning the learner engages in three important cognitive processes. The first cognitive progress, selecting, is applied to incoming verbal information to yield a text base and is applied to incoming visual information to yield an image base. The second cognitive process, organizing, is applied to the word base to create a verbally-based model of the to-be explained system and is applied to the image base to create a visually-based model of the to be- explained system. Finally, the third process, integrating, occurs when the learner builds connections between corresponding events (or states or parts) in the verbally-based model and the visually-based model. The model is explained more fully in Mayer (1997), and has generated a series of experiments yielding five major principles of how to use multimedia to help students understand a scientific explanation. Each principle of multimedia design is subject to further research.
Written by Brian S McGowan, PhD
Dr. McGowan has served in leadership positions in numerous medical educational organizations and commercial supporters and is a Fellow of the Alliance (FACEhp). He founded the Outcomes Standardization Project, launched and hosted the Alliance Podcast, and most recently launched and hosts the JCEHP Emerging Best Practices in CPD podcast. In 2012 he Co-Founded ArcheMedX, Inc, a healthcare informatics and e-learning company to apply his research in practice.
