Huifen Lin

The effect of different chunking strategies in complementing animated instruction

The purpose of this exploratory and small‐scale study was to examine the instructional effects of different chunking strategies used to complement animated instruction in terms of facilitating achievement of higher order learning objectives. Eighty‐five students were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: animated program instruction, simple visual‐text (static images and verbal explanation) chunked animated program instruction and the animated complex visual‐text chunked program instruction. The difference between simple and complex chunked instructions is the content. Simple chunks only deal with one content area while the complex chunks explain two or more related content areas. Students interacted with their respective web‐based instructional treatments and completed four criterion measures. Results (ANOVA) indicated that significant differences in achievement were found to exist in facilitating higher order learning objectives when chunking strategies were specifically designed and positioned to complement the animated instruction. Results also indicated that complex chunking is more effective in reducing the cognitive load present in an animated instructional environment, and that students need prerequisite knowledge before being able to profit from animated instruction designed to facilitate higher order learning outcomes.

The Effect of Verbal Advance Organizers in Complementing Animated Instruction

Abstract This investigation explored the instructional effect of verbal advance organizers used as enhancement strategies to complement animated instruction. Eighty-nine college students were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: (1) control group, (2) verbal descriptive advance organizer group and(3) verbal question advance organizer group. Four independent criterion tests were used to measure students’ achievement of the different educational objectives. Results indicated insignificant differences in achievement among the three treatment groups on each of the criterion measures indicating that the use of verbal advance organizer treatments used to complement the visually-animated instruction did not instigate deeper levels of information processing than did the animated instruction alone.

Effectiveness of Various Enhancement Strategies to Complement Animated Instruction: A Meta-Analytic Assessment

Animation of various types has been used increasingly in different disciplines in computer-based learning environments to facilitate achievements of different kinds of learning objectives. However, the result of empirical animation studies has been mixed and mostly discouraging. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the instructional effectiveness of different types of enhancement strategies used to complement animated instruction. Eleven hundred and twenty-four college-level students participated in 12 independent experimental studies. The uniqueness of this meta-analysis lies in the fact that the instructional content and four independent criterion measures were held constant in all studies. One hundred and twenty-four effect sizes were calculated. The results indicate that when “conventional” one dimensional animation strategies are employed to complement animated instruction, small to moderate effect sizes are realized and that the various enhancement strategies were not equally effective in facilitating different types of educational objectives.