EditorialCognitive and affective processes in multimedia learning
Introduction
This special section is based on the invited SIG 6 Symposium on Instructional Design, which took place during the 14th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) in summer 2011 in Exeter, U.K. This symposium was organized and chaired by Babette Park, Jan L. Plass, and Roland Brünken, and was dedicated to Dr. Roxana Moreno, who had unexpectedly passed away the previous summer. With Dr. Moreno's untimely death, our community lost one of our most prolific researchers and highly productive scholars, a wonderful human being who will be missed by many (see also Robinson, 2010). With this special section we would like to commemorate Dr. Moreno's most recent work on a Cognitive-Affective Theory of Learning with Media (CATLM; Moreno, 2005, Moreno, 2006, Moreno, 2007, Moreno, 2009) by presenting papers that have provided empirical evidence for the CATLM and that may inspire more research related to this theory.
CATLM focuses on cognitive and affective processes in multimedia learning. The theory is based on recent theoretical frameworks of multimedia learning and enhances the cognitive perspective by taking motivational and affective aspects into account. The model includes four cognitive assumptions: (1) The existence of verbal and non-verbal information processing channels that are relatively independent of one another, (2) the limited capacity of working memory, as well as a virtually unlimited capacity of long-term memory, (3) enhanced learning through dual coding, and (4) the need for learners to actively process information to construct meaning. These well-known assumptions, which are based on Mayer's Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2005), are augmented by three new assumptions: (5) the affective mediation assumption, which suggests that motivational factors mediate learning by increasing or decreasing cognitive engagement (Gottfried, 1990, Moreno et al., 2001, Park et al., 2011), (6) the metacognitive mediation assumption, which suggests that metacognitive factors mediate learning by regulating cognitive and affective processes (McGuinness, 1990, Morris, 1990), and (7) the individual differences assumption, which suggests that differences in learners' prior knowledge (Kalyuga et al., 2003, Moreno, 2004) and traits such as cognitive styles and abilities (Moreno & Durán 2004; Plass et al., 1998, Seufert et al., 2009) affect the efficiency of learning with methods and media. The resulting CATLM is shown in Fig. 1.
To consider these affective aspects in research on instructional design, three contributions are presented in this special section that focus on cognitive and affective processes in multimedia learning. D'Mello, Lehman, Pekrun, and Graesser (2013) studied whether confusion is an affective state that can be beneficial to learning. Magner, Schwonke, Aleven, Popescu, and Renkl (2013) investigated the effects of decorative illustrations and their distracting or motivating function. Plass, Heidig, Hayward, Homer, and Um (2013) reported a study on how the design of multimedia learning materials can induce positive emotions in learners, and how these positive emotions facilitate cognitive processing and improve cognitive and affective outcomes.
Section snippets
Overview of the studies
Each of the three studies presented in this special section provides empirical support for different aspects of CATML. D'Mello et al. (2013) conducted a study on the impact of a particular emotion, confusion, on learning. Confusion can be a result of contradictions, conflicts, anomalies, erroneous information, and other discrepant events in the learning materials, and can result in a state of cognitive disequilibrium. Under specific conditions, however, confusion can be beneficial to learning.
Conclusion and future directions
The papers in this special section demonstrate that the integration of cognitive and affective processes in multimedia learning is a promising area of inquiry that, although still in its infancy, has the potential to significantly broaden our understanding of multimedia learning. Findings suggest that including emotion and other affective variables is not only essential in the process of designing multimedia learning environments, but that these variables are also critical in understanding and
Acknowledgments
The present work was in part supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, as well as by a grant from Microsoft Research.
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