Multimedia learning research, pioneered by Richard Mayer, investigates how people learn from instructional materials that combine words (printed or spoken) and pictures (illustrations, animations, video). Mayer's cognitive theory of multimedia learning builds on dual coding theory and cognitive load theory, proposing that learners have separate channels for processing visual and auditory information, each with limited capacity, and that meaningful learning requires active cognitive processing: selecting relevant information, organizing it into coherent representations, and integrating it with prior knowledge.
Core Principles
Decades of experimental research have yielded robust design principles. The multimedia principle: people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone. The modality principle: people learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on-screen text (because narration uses the auditory channel, freeing the visual channel for the animation). The contiguity principle: people learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near each other in space (spatial contiguity) and time (temporal contiguity).
Several principles focus on eliminating extraneous processing. The coherence principle: remove extraneous material (interesting but irrelevant details, decorative illustrations). The signaling principle: highlight essential material with cues. The redundancy principle: do not add on-screen text to narrated animation (the redundant text competes with the animation for visual attention). The segmenting principle: break complex lessons into learner-paced segments rather than continuous presentations.
Modern Extensions
Recent research extends multimedia learning to interactive simulations, virtual reality, gesture-based learning, and embodied learning environments. Individual differences — particularly spatial ability, prior knowledge, and working memory capacity — moderate the effectiveness of multimedia principles. The expertise reversal effect shows that design principles effective for novices can be ineffective or harmful for experts, who have the schemas to manage more complex presentations.