Principles of Multimedia Learning

The Ten Principles of multimedia learning

1. Multimedia Principle:
People learn better from word and pictures than from words alone.

2. Contiguity Principle:
People learn better when when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other in time or on the screen.

3. Coherence Principle:
People learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded rather than included.

4. Modality Principle:
People learn better from words and pictures when words are spoken rather than printed.

5. Redundancy Principle:
People learn better from animation and narration than from animation, narration and on screen text.

6. Personalization Principle:
People learn better when words are presented in a conversational style, rather than formal style.

7. Voice Principle:
People learn better when words are spoken in a non-accented human voice than in a machine voice or accented voice.

8. Signaling Principle:
People learn better when the voice signals important words rather than when there are no signals.

9. Interactivity Principle:
People learn better when they can control the pace of presentation than when they receive continuous presentation.

10. Pretraining principle:
People learn better when they receive pretraining on each component rather than no pretraining.

Find out more about Professor Mayer's research at:
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/mayer/index.php