Introduction
As a digital learning developer, I work alongside academics and other subject matter experts (SMEs) to plan, design, structure and produce online learning activities and materials.
I am a huge advocate for evidence-based practice, and incorporate theories from educational psychology and cognitive psychology in the work that I produce, as well as multimedia learning and related principles. During 2021, I successfully gained AFHEA accreditation.
I have worked on projects across a range of disciplines; here, I have chosen examples that demonstrate my use of multimedia learning principles and cognitive load.
Cognitive load and multimedia learning principles
Cognitive load and related theories in the field of cognitive psychology seek to describe the workings of the human mind, to better understand how we can formulate learning to be as “brain friendly” as possible, and minimise the cognitive effort required to understand learning material.
Cognitive load describes the mental effort used or required to understand specific concepts or learning material. The amount of mental bandwidth required to understand a given problem is dependent upon both our working memory and our existing knowledge and strategies related to the problem. As we build up expertise in a field, we build up ‘schemata’, or mental concepts and shortcuts that we understand intuitively (Kirschner and Hendrick 2020). These allow us to exceed the capacity of our working memory by bundling concepts and building mental shortcuts and models, thereby reducing the cognitive load necessary to tackle a problem (Kirschner and Hendrick 2020). Sweller calls this ‘domain-specific knowledge’. This knowledge is what truly separates an expert from a novice, comprising the problem-solving skills they need to be competent in their field. In higher education, our role is to help students develop the schematas they need to become functioning members of their professional and intellectual tribes.
Mayer’s multimedia learning principles (Mayer, 2021) are tightly related to the concept of cognitive load, and the principles themselves are focused on exploiting the dual processing nature of cognition – that the mind has two separate systems for processing information: separate verbal (for language) and non-verbal (for everything else) channels (Clark & Paivio, 1991) – utilising both channels simultaneously increases the total amount of processing that can be done. The original concept of these channels puts written and spoken words in the verbal channel since both are processed as language. Mayer argues for a sensory-modality understanding of these channels that puts written text in the non-verbal channel because it is initially perceived as a visual medium. This would mean that on-screen text may be harder to process than verbal explanations accompanying diagrams or other images.
Both Sweller and Mayer (Sweller 2010; Mayer 2021) discuss the limitations of working memory in their research. Though there is some difference in the terminology they employ, it is generally agreed that there are three different types of mental processing that are relevant when considering learning material as a whole, including interfaces and methods of accessing that material.
Intrinsic load / essential processing (manage)
intrinsic load is the level of mental effort required to understand or engage with the specific material to be learned. A key factor in determining intrinsic load is the level of element interactivity involved — the number of pieces of new information learning needs to process, and the relationships that exist between them. The more new information, and the more complicated the network of relationships between them, the greater the intrinsic load involved in processing it (Lovell 2020). Mayer’s principles of segmenting content into small chunks, providing pretraining (for example, of related terms) and careful choice of modality can help to manage intrinsic load (Mayer 2021).
Extraneous Load / extraneous processing (reduce)
Extraneous load is that which is not necessary for the learning task. The crucial task here, is to eliminate redundancy much as possible. This includes cutting back on content that does not serve the learning goal (Lovell 2020); clearly defined learning outcomes can help with identifying material that is unnecessary. Extraneous load can also relate to how content is presented — highly visual material can be very distracting, and counter-productive to learning. Sometimes, a pared back approach that is less stimulating can help relieve extraneous load. From the perspective of multimedia learning, having consistency of navigation, semantic colours and help available are good practice points. It can be easy to choose high fidelity, lifelike approaches to learning material, believing that a true to life experience is preferable to a more abstract approach. However, this abstract approach can be educationally beneficial if it reduces extraneous load and contributes to reducing element interactivity, thus also helping to manage intrinsic load.
Germane Load / generative processing (foster)
Germane load relates to the amount of mental processing the learner chooses to use to make sense of material. The individual learner’s motivation to engage with material can be fostered through positive learning experiences that speak directly to the learner with a conversational style, active learning opportunities, and the use of multimedia (material based on words and pictures rather than words alone) (Mayer 2021).
Examples
These concepts are always kept in mind in my approach to designing multimedia learning experiences. Below are some examples of projects that utilise pedagogic approaches supported by cognitive learning:
Rotary Evaporator Tour
This interactive activity is a small part of the Interactive Chemistry Experiments Project, and is designed to familiarise novice chemists with a new but common piece of lab equipment. This project also allowed me to practice and enhance newly acquired skills in 3D modelling, and integrate this with Articulate Storyline.
The tour part of the interactive uses markers to highlight specific areas of interest to students (Fig. 1). These markers were slightly animated to draw attention to them. One failing of Storyline in this regard is the inability to resize the marker points, so they do appear quite small on certain screens. Given that I had decided to lightbox additional information as separate slides rather than using the native marker content, since this was too limiting, if I was to re-visit this I would replace these with custom marker images/animations.
The additional information screens (fig. 2) contain text based descriptions, alongside animations or still images depicting the particular area highlighted. The images are able to be zoomed, and the animations are controllable by the user. Extra cautions and mechanism information are included where relevant. I would revisit this in future to maximise the size of the animations/images and include narration and on-screen annotations/arrows timed to the animation, including captions, as this would be preferable for maximising visual/verbal processing capacity. However, in this instance, the specific content was still being confirmed while the tour was being created, and there wasn’t sufficient time to incorporate it at that time.
In the same vein, the step-by-step instructions (fig. 3) would ideally be reformatted to place the instruction text near to the part of the graphic/animations for better spatial contiguity, and include additional information as a voice-over.
Educational Video – Using an LFT
This project from 2020 was part of the University’s Covid response, and was an instructional video designed to train students and staff to test themselves for high Covid-19 viral load using a lateral flow device. Durham was part of a prototype of rapid testing kits conducted by Public Health England (now the UK Health Security Agency), and our materials were scripted in consultation with PHE specialists.
The project was extremely quick, taking less than a week from concept to delivery of the final piece due to pressures of deadline and the fast pace of the pandemic response at that time. I helped with compiling and organising the script, created original illustrations from photographs provided by others in my wider team, and created the overall animation using Adobe After Effects and Audition.
While I was able to follow many of Mayer’s multimedia principles in this project, one thing I would change was the use of background music, as this could be a potential distracting factor for some viewers. I tempered this inclusion by reducing the volume of the music to ensure that the narration had sufficient auditory primacy and would not get lost.
Transfusion Prescribing
This 2019 project allowed me to try some new things at the time. Being self-contained and aimed at a different audience meant that I wasn’t constrained by the formats we had agreed for other projects. I took the opportunity to put into practice some of the lessons I had learned about multimedia design during my Master’s course. Having tight planning done in advance enabled me to structure the learning into sections, and I was able to incorporate elements of storytelling, using relatable case studies to drive home certain practice points and as a motivating tool.
I used Articulate Storyline for the interactive structure, and used graphic design and animation skills (Adobe Illustrator and After Effects) to create illustrations, characters and animations. Some screens included narrated voice-overs combined with captioning, but use of audio was limited due to a lack of adequate speaker provision on Hospital-owned computers.
References
CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
Caviglioli, O. (2019). Dual Coding With Teachers. John Catt Educational.
Clark, James M., and Allan Paivio. 1991. “Dual Coding Theory and Education.” Educational Psychology Review 3 (3): 149–210.
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3rd ed.). Pfeiffer.
Plain English Campaign. (2020). How to write in plain English. http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/files/howto.pdf