Scholarly research has been conducted for decades on how people learn when exposed to multimedia. Richard E. Mayer has studied this research and compiled a list of best practices that can be used when designing multimedia learning objects. These Principles of Multimedia Learning, which currently total 15, can be used as guideposts for instructional designers and educational technologists as they develop their digital learning artifacts, from eLearning modules to educational videos, instructional stories to digital presentations, interactive learning objects to immersive learning environments.
Bookmark this page in your web browser to make it easy to reference Mayer’s Principles of Multimedia Learning. Use the principles to guide you in your creation of learning objects that research has shown helps people learn.
|
1. The Coherence PrinciplePeople learn better when distracting material is eliminated. |
2. The Signaling PrinciplePeople learn better when it is made clear on what they should be focusing. |
3. The Redundancy PrinciplePeople learn better with narration and graphics, as opposed to narration, graphics, and text. |
|
4. The Spatial Contiguity PrinciplePeople learn better when relevant text and visuals are close together. |
5. The Temporal Contiguity PrinciplePeople learn better when corresponding words and visuals are presented together, as opposed to consecutively. |
6. The Segmenting PrinciplePeople learn better when information is presented in segments, as opposed to a long, continuous stream. |
|
7. The Pre-Training PrinciplePeople learn better when they already know some of the basics. |
8. The Modality PrinciplePeople learn better from visuals and spoken words, as opposed to visuals and printed words. |
9. The Multimedia PrinciplePeople learn better from words and pictures, as opposed to words alone. |
|
10. The Personalization PrinciplePeople learn better from a more informal voice. |
11. The Voice PrinciplePeople learn better from a human voice, as opposed to a computer voice. |
12. The Image PrinciplePeople do not necessarily learn better from a “talking head” video. |
|
13. The Embodiment PrinciplePeople learn better when onscreen instructors exhibit human-like characteristics as they explain concepts. |
14. The Immersion PrinciplePeople do not necessarily learn better in 3D immersive virtual reality than with corresponding 2D presentations. |
15. The Generative Activity PrinciplePeople learn better when they are guided to carry out generative learning activities. |
