Auditory support in linguistically diverse classrooms : factors related to bilingual text-to-speech use

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An Investigation of Multimedia Instruction, the Modality Principle, and Reading Comprehension in Fourth-Grade Classrooms

Elementary-school teachers are faced with the responsibility of finding the most effective ways to educate their students using multimedia approaches. The use of instruction with visuals and audio has resulted in positive learning outcomes on retention and transfer tasks for junior-high and high-school students. This approach that results in the modality principle has been tested less frequently in elementary-aged students. The purpose of this study was to examine two different multimedia instructional approaches to investigate which condition offers beneficial learning outcomes through recall and transfer assessments during a lesson on different types of energy in fourth-grade classrooms using a Powerpoint® presentation. In addition, reading-comprehension levels were studied to investigate how students with varying reading levels performed on recall and transfer tasks when presented with an audio or visual presentation. The independent variables were the method of instruction including visuals with auditory information and visuals with written text and reading-comprehension scores from a previous assessment. The dependent variables were student performance on recall and transfer assessments. Results from the study were not statistically significant for the method of multimedia instruction overall on both dependent variables and for three different reading levels. Students who received multimedia instruction with visuals and written text and with visuals and audio performed similarly on recall and transfer tasks. Results suggested that both methods of multimedia instruction, visuals with text and visuals with audio, can be used in elementary-school classrooms with similar outcomes on recall and transfer tasks. These results translate to students at different reading levels as well. When teachers are preparing or choosing lessons for elementary-aged students, a visual text or audio approach may benefit their students in similar ways

Dual Modality Code Explanations for Novices: Unexpected Results

The research in both cognitive load theory and multimedia principles for learning indicates presenting information using both diagrams and accompanying audio explanations yields better learning performance than using diagrams with text explanations. While this is a common practice in introductory programming courses, often called live coding, it has yet to be empirically tested. This paper reports on an experiment to determine if auditory explanations of code result in improved learning performance over written explanations. Students were shown videos explaining short code segments one of three ways: text only explanations, auditory only explanations, or both text and auditory explanations, thus replicating experiments from other domains. The results from this study do not support the findings from other disciplines and we offer explanations for why this may be the case

Image and Multimedia Resources in an Academic Environment: A Qualitative Study of Students’ Experiences and Literacy Practices

The digital environment provides an abundance of images and multimedia and offers a new potential for using resources in multiple modes of representation for teaching and learning. This paper reports the findings of a case study that investigated the use of image and multimedia resources in an undergraduate classroom. The study assumed a contextual approach and focused on different class contexts and students’ literacy practices. The class, which took place in a resource-rich, multimodal environment, was perceived by students as a positive learning experience. The distribution of resources and their role in teaching and learning varied and depended on the context of use. The findings indicate that images fulfilled important descriptive and mnemonic functions when students were introduced to new concepts, but their role was limited in practices that required students to analyze and synthesize knowledge

Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2004

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2004

A cognitive approach to user perception of multimedia quality: An empirical investigation

Whilst multimedia technology has been one of the main contributing factors behind the Web's success, delivery of personalized multimedia content has been a desire seldom achieved in practice. Moreover, the perspective adopted is rarely viewed from a cognitive styles standpoint, notwithstanding the fact that they have significant effects on users’ preferences with respect to the presentation of multimedia content. Indeed, research has thus far neglected to examine the effect of cognitive styles on users’ subjective perceptions of multimedia quality. This paper aims to examine the relationships between users’ cognitive styles, the multimedia quality of service delivered by the underlying network, and users’ quality of perception (understood as both enjoyment and informational assimilation) associated with the viewed multimedia content. Results from the empirical study reported here show that all users, regardless of cognitive style, have higher levels of understanding of informational content in multimedia video clips (represented in our study by excerpts from television programmes) with weak dynamism, but that they enjoy moderately dynamic clips most. Additionally, multimedia content was found to significantly influence users’ levels of understanding and enjoyment. Surprisingly, our study highlighted the fact that Bimodal users prefer to draw on visual sources for informational purposes, and that the presence of text in multimedia clips has a detrimental effect on the knowledge acquisition of all three cognitive style groups

Modality effects on adult learning

This paper focuses on improving older adults\u27 recall of important health information. The study\u27s objective is to test which of three presentation modalities (text, audio or text plus audio) leads to improved performance of older adults\u27 learning health information. The total number of participants consisted of 16 males and 18 females, or a total of 34 participants. The mean age of the group was 72.5. The participants were divided into three groups and each group was presented with one of three modalities (i.e. text, text plus audio, and audio), selected randomly, on an auto start CD, using PowerPoint as a guide. The outcome measures were a 10 question, Likert scale Ease of Comprehension Questionnaire, and a 10 Question Multiple-Choice Test. There was no main effect for the Ease of Comprehension variables or the Multiple-Choice Test recall variables due to treatment effects. The effect size for the Ease of Comprehension variable equaled .530 as measured by Eta squared. Given more power, the outcome would likely demonstrate significant results