Mayer, 1991
From Eduwiki
In the Mayer’s readings it talks about how animations need narrations and experimental test of a dual coding hypothesis. He states that step by step descriptions of cause and effect actions occurring within a system, and explanative illustrations, that is, frame by frame pictures of the cause and effect changes occurring within the system, in helping students to understand scientific explanations. Students read passages on topics such as how pumping systems work, how braking systems work, or how electrical generation systems work, and then answered creative problem solving questions such as how to improve or troubleshoot the system.
There are three types of experiments tested, one is the single code hypothesis, separate dual code hypothesis, and integrated dual code hypothesis.
The single code hypothesis as stated in the reading is one common mode of mental representation for words and pictures. He used the animation of the tire pump and words explaining the process. The results were that subjects in the words with pictures group generated approximately 50% more solutions to the test problems than did subjects in the words before pictures group.
In the separate dual code hypothesis is the information presented as words may be represented in a verbal form, and information presented as pictures may be represented in a visual form. The results of this experiment were that the subjects in the works with pictures group generated about 50% more creative solutions to problems that did subjects in the words before pictures group.
The Integrated dual code hypothesis stated in the reading that learners can build both visual and verbal modes of mental representations as well as connections between them. In this analysis he states that it does not provide conclusive evidence that the pictures only group generated fewer verbal representations than the words only and words with pictures groups, so this matter must be resolved in future research.
In conclusion, results showed that animation without narration can have essentially the same effect on students’ scientific understanding as no instruction…both words and pictures, our results show that presenting verbal and visual explanations without connecting them is much less helpful than coordinating verbal narration simultaneously with animation….illustrations and verbal labels in instructional texts resulted in better problem solving transfer than did presenting illustrations without verbal labels…narrative and visual portions of an instructional movie resulted in better recall than did presentation of the narration before the corresponding visual sequence.
- The P value is an important aspect of any statistical experiment. (P is the value for probability.)
Link to a Wiki page concerning "Dual-Coding Hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-coding_theory
