Learning Science · Reading, representing and explaining

Useful multimedia and distracting additions

Use images, sound and animation when they explain the target relationship, and remove additions that divert the required thinking.

Use the examples to connect this lesson with the earlier topics. No specialist equipment is needed.

Back to the chapter

After reading, you can

Distinguish an explanatory visual from an interesting but irrelevant addition.
Plan a multimedia segment with labels, pacing and accessible equivalents.

Interesting is a different criterion from explanatory

A lesson about a pump can benefit from a diagram showing its inlet, chamber and outlet. A dramatic photograph of a waterfall may be interesting but explain none of the pump’s operation. The difference lies in the learning goal. An image is useful when it helps the learner see a relationship, inspect evidence or follow a change that the explanation requires.

Multimedia combines forms such as written language, spoken language, diagrams, photographs and animation. Adding forms does not automatically add understanding. The learner must select relevant information, interpret each form and connect it with the others. Unnecessary additions compete for attention and can suggest that an incidental detail is part of the explanation.

Make the correspondence easy to follow

Place labels near what they name. Explain an unfamiliar arrow or symbol before expecting the learner to use it. In animation, give learners a way to pause at a meaningful stage and inspect what changed. A static sequence may be better than continuous motion when the task is comparing states. The choice depends on what must be learned.

Avoid narrating one idea while showing an unrelated event. If speech refers to a valve opening, show that event at the relevant moment. Essential captions, transcripts and descriptions support access; they should not be removed on a simplistic rule that repeated information is always harmful. Learners differ in language, hearing, vision and control over playback.

Inspect the effect on learning

Research on seductive details examines interesting additions that do not serve the learning goal. A controlled study found evidence that diversion toward such details could harm recall in its particular multimedia task. This is a reason to inspect relevance, not a claim that every engaging illustration or moment of humour reduces learning.

Ask learners to predict the next state, explain a labelled part or compare two stages. If they remember the decorative story but cannot explain the process, revise the design. Remove or relocate distracting detail, clarify the mapping and check again. Keep engaging material when it serves orientation, motivation or explanation without obscuring the target; those purposes need to be evaluated separately.

Worked example

Designing a water-cycle segment

Which parts of the water-cycle visual serve the explanation?

The goal is to explain how water moves between a surface and the atmosphere. A simple authored sequence shows evaporation, transport and condensation with labels and a written explanation. It states that the arrows represent movement of water, and that the drawing is a simplified model rather than a measured map of weather.
The designer removes looping background birds because they do not help trace water movement. They retain a pause after evaporation and ask where the water is now. A description supplies the same sequence in words. The revision makes the visual answerable: it supports a prediction and an explanation instead of serving as moving wallpaper.

The sequence, state labels and explicit arrow meaning help trace water. Background birds do not answer that learning question. Keep an accessible text equivalent.

A visual whose links serve the question

Liquid at a surface becomes vapour by evaporation. Vapour may move with air. Under suitable cooling it condenses to liquid droplets. Arrows trace this partial water sequence; no rates or complete cycle are shown.

Try it yourself

Think through each question before opening the answer.

Why might a photograph be better than an animation in one lesson?
Show the answer and reasoning
A photograph may show a real structure or piece of evidence that the learner must inspect.
Motion adds little when the goal concerns a static feature.
What makes an arrow in a diagram educationally risky?
Show the answer and reasoning
Its meaning may be assumed rather than stated.
Learners can confuse sequence, cause and physical movement unless the relationship is defined.
How should essential captions be treated?
Show the answer and reasoning
Preserve accessible equivalents and evaluate their layout and timing.
A general concern about redundancy does not justify removing needed access.

What to carry forward

Choose media by the relationship they teach.
Make mappings, pacing and accessible equivalents explicit.

References

Sources supporting the explanations and learning checks in this lesson.