The Modality Principle in Multimedia Learning

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816819.010

9 - The Modality Principle in Multimedia Learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Renae Low and

John Sweller

Edited by

Richard Mayer

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Renae Low: Affiliation:
University of New South Wales
John Sweller: Affiliation:
University of New South Wales
Richard Mayer: Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara

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Summary

Abstract

The capacity limitations of working memory are a major impediment when students are required to learn new material. Furthermore, those limitations are relatively inflexible. Nevertheless, in this chapter we explore one technique that can effectively expand working memory capacity. Under certain, well-defined conditions, presenting some information in visual mode and other information in auditory mode can expand effective working memory capacity and so reduce the effects of an excessive cognitive load. This effect is called the modality effect or modality principle. It is an instructional principle that can substantially increase learning. This chapter discusses the theory and data that underpin the principle and the instructional implications that flow from the principle.

Introduction

There is evidence to indicate that the manner in which information is presented will affect how well it is learned and remembered (e.g., Mayer, Bove, Bryman, Mars, & Tapangco, 1996). This chapter deals with evidence documenting the importance of presentation modes, specifically the modality effect that occurs when information presented in a mixed mode (partly visual and partly auditory) is more effective than when the same information is presented in a single mode (either visual or auditory alone). The instructional version of the modality effect derives from the split-attention effect (see chapter 8), a phenomenon explicable by cognitive load theory (see chapter 2). It occurs when multiple sources of information that must be mentally integrated before they can be understood have written (and therefore visual) information presented in spoken (and therefore auditory) form.

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning , pp. 147 - 158

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816819.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

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