e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

7.9. Evidence for Omitting Extraneous Words Added for Interest

Do students learn more deeply from a narrated animation when interesting verbal information is added to the narration? To address this question, Mayer, Heiser, and Lonn (2001) asked some students to view a three-minute narrated animation about lightning formation, like the one described in the previous section. Other students viewed the same three-minute presentation, but with six additional narration segments inserted at various points. The narration segments were short and fit within the three-minute presentation at points that otherwise were silent. For example, after saying that water vapor forms a cloud, the narrator added: "On a warm cloudy day, swimmers are sitting ducks for ...