ChanLin, L.J. (1998). Animation to teach students of different knowledge levels. Journal of Instructional Psychology 25(3), 166-175.

ChanLin, L.

1998

ChanLin, L.J. (1998). Animation to teach students of different knowledge levels. Journal of Instructional Psychology 25(3), 166-175.

In multimedia instruction, computer graphics play an important role in helping students interpret and understand scientific concepts. This paper reports a study of how different visual treatments (no graphics, still graphics, animated graphics) influenced 135 students with different prior knowledge levels (high, low) in learning procedural and descriptive knowledge. It was found that in the low prior-knowledge group, both still graphic and animation treatments were better than the control in learning descriptive facts (p < 0.05); while in the high prior-knowledge group, only the animation group was better than the control in learning descriptive facts (p < 0.05). In learning procedural knowledge, no significant differences were found among any two treatments in the low prior-knowledge group, while in the high prior-knowledge group, only the still graphic treatment was better than control (p < 0.001).

From the study, it was found that graphics in still or animated form enhanced both novice and experienced learners' learning. For inexperienced learners, both animation and still graphics facilitated learning of descriptive facts; for experienced learners, animation was more effective for promoting a deeper level of visual elaboration and facilitating learning of descriptive facts (p < 0.05). In learning procedural facts, the effect of presentation treatment was not significant among inexperienced learners, whereas a significant treatment effect was found among experienced learners (p <0.005).

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