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Social entities are implemented within educational videos in order to create a stimulating learning environment that will serve for social identification and knowledge transfer. In two experiments performed for this study, university students watched an instructional video about multiple sclerosis (experiment 1) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (experiment 2). In both experiments, the lecturer's presentation was manipulated in terms of addressing (frontal versus lateral) and dress style (professional versus non-professional). The results revealed that learners who watched the videos where the frontal addressing style was used outperformed those who watched the video where the lateral addressing style was used. The professional dress style was only beneficial for retention performance in the condition where the frontal addressing style was used. The frontal addressing style and the professional dress style were also found to be beneficial in terms of cognitive load reduction and in enhancing parasocial processes.

Higher mathematics is an obligatory subject for most students at technical universities and is especially difficult to understand. Many multimedia studies have shown that politeness in instructions and feedback can enhance learning outcomes. Thus, this study aimed to investigate if politeness could improve the learning performance of students in an online mathematics course that was presented within a year. In our experiment, 277 students were randomly assigned to a 2 (politeness in instructions; polite vs. direct) × 2 (politeness in feedback; polite vs. direct) factorial between-subjects design. The learning material consisted of four chapters of higher mathematics and four post-tests. Unexpectedly, politeness in instructions did not influence the results. Furthermore, groups receiving polite feedback spent more time on the exercises in the chapters and achieved higher scores in chapters and post-tests. In sum, politeness in feedback influenced learning positively, but politeness in instructions did not have any influence.

According to the Self-Determination Theory, the autonomy-supporting feature of choice leads to an increase in intrinsically motivated behavior. Although this effect was replicated multiple times, instructional designers often dread to include choice options in single tasks because of the high effort in designing additional materials or a higher cognitive load for students. This study used a feigned choice paradigm to avoid additional efforts for designers. Moreover, this study examined the mediational influences of learners' perceived autonomy and intrinsic motivation on choice effects and the moderating influence of the relevance of choice options. In Experiment 1, 79 secondary school students were randomly assigned to either a group with a feigned topic choice or a group without the possibility to choose. Results show that both retention and transfer performance (learning scores) were enhanced by choice options. In addition, the effect of choice on retention was mediated by perceived autonomy but not by intrinsic motivation. In Experiment 2, 87 secondary school students were assigned to a 2 (with or without a feigned learning-relevant choice) x 2 (with or without a feigned learning-irrelevant choice) design in order to additionally examine the moderating effects of relevance of choice options. All results of Experiment 1 were replicated for the inclusion of learning-relevant choices, whereas irrelevant choices were not found to significantly impact scores of transfer and external regulation. Interestingly, all students with a choice reported a lower intrinsic load, although the complexity of the learning tasks was kept constant.

In the educational context, the influences of the emotional charge of audiovisual media are rarely investigated. Additionally, the mood of the learner influences learning with multimedia. This study aims to investigate the influence of both variables on learning with videos. Therefore, 162 school students watched educational videos which were manipulated in terms of emotional charge. The participants were randomly assigned to one cell of a 2 (learners mood: positive vs. negative) × 2 (emotional charge of the educational video: positive vs. negative) between-subjects factorial design. Retention and transfer performance were measured in order to examine learning effects. Furthermore, mental load, mental effort, and affective variables were collected. Results revealed that the mood of the learner did not influence learning outcomes and cognitive assessments. The positive emotional charge of the video fostered retention performance and led to a reduced mental load. Transfer performance was fostered in the conditions with congruence between learners mood and the emotional charge of the video. Results are discussed by considering the emotion-as-facilitator hypothesis and the mood congruency effect.

The signaling effect states that learners profit from cues that highlight the organization of specific relevant information within materials. This meta-analysis includes 103 studies and N = 12,201 participants. 139 retention and 70 transfer performance measures were used to determine separate mean effect sizes. Cognitive load, motivation/affect, learning time, and eye-tracking data were included as dependent variables to explain possible effect mechanisms. Additionally, nine possible moderators (e.g., type of signaling) were identified. The retention (g+ = 0.53, 95% CI [0.42, 0.64]) and transfer (g+ = 0.33, 95% CI [0.22, 0.43]) sizes support the positive effect of signaling on motivation/affect, learning time, and learning-relevant fixations. Cognitive load was significantly reduced. In contrast to the expertise reversal effect hypothesis, prior knowledge was not identified as a moderator of the signaling effect. The results were interpreted using media learning theories. Recommendations for future studies are included herein.

Body movements such as gestures and facial expressions are an essential part of human communication. While first results show that body movements of pedagogical agents in educational videos foster learning when they are learning-related, the impact of unrelated gestures and facial expressions is still not fully examined. This study investigated whether learning-unrelated gestures and facial expressions performed by an on-screen instructor were able to increase learning outcomes while considering differences in cognitive load and the perception of the agent. In a 2 (gestures; with vs. without) x 2 (facial expressions; with vs. without) between-subject design, data of 163 participants was collected. Results revealed that a pedagogical agent who performed both gestures and facial expressions led to better retention performances. In terms of transfer, participants performed better when they watched the agent performing gestures or facial expressions solely. In line with the computers-as-social-actors paradigm, gestures and facial expressions made the agent look more human-like. Gestures and facial expressions also led to higher perceptions of learning facilitation. In contrast to the hypotheses, implementing learning-irrelevant body movements did not cause extraneous processing. The results of this study are discussed with a focus on social processes while learning.

Concepts maps can be an effective way to present conceptual relationships to learners. However, teachers using concept maps suffer from a lack of evidence-based design principles. Highlighting the organization of the information and making its structure more salient might be more helpful for learners, especially as concept maps increase in size and complexity. In two experiments (N1 = 104; N2 = 155), the effect of organization highlighting in concept maps on learning was investigated applying the signaling and the spatial contiguity principle (Experiment 1) or the signaling and the segmenting principle (Experiment 2). Results revealed that providing segmented concept maps with high spatial proximity of sub-concepts enhanced learning outcomes. Additionally, signaling was beneficial for learning in both experiments but more efficient when concept maps were non-segmented or with a low spatial proximity of sub-concepts – supporting the assumption that signaling is an effective way to reduce extraneous cognitive load and foster learning from materials that induce a high extraneous cognitive load. Explanations are provided considering differences in metacognitive judgments, time on task, and mental effort (Experiment 1 and 2) as well as learners’ efficiency (Experiment 2).

Learning from erroneous worked examples could enhance learning in contrast to problem-solving tasks. The type of error was hypothesized to be a moderator and accuracy of error detection and correction a mediator of this effect. This study examines the influence of simple syntactic (the structure of the code) and complex semantic (the logic or content of the code) errors in a programming scenario. Overall, 128 students were assigned to a two (syntactic errors: yes vs. no) × two (semantic errors: yes vs. no) factorial between-subjects design. Students’ accuracy in error detection and correction, learning performance, mental load, and mental effort were measured. Results showed that learners receiving syntactic errors detected and corrected errors with higher accuracy which leads to higher learning performance. Semantic errors did not influence learning-related variables since semantic errors were too difficult for novice learners to detect and fix. The postulated moderation and mediation could be supported.

Pedagogical agents are frequently used in digital learning environments. On the basis of the computers-as-social-actors paradigm (CASA), learners do not differentiate between the interaction with these characters and any other social interaction. Therefore, the appearance of pedagogical agents is vulnerable to stereotyping mechanisms such as ageism. In addition, research suggests that the activation of stereotypes also depends on the context of accompanying verbal information. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to one cell of a 2 (stereotype of the agent: young vs. old) × 2 (stereotypical priming within the text: young vs. old) between-subjects factorial design in order to examine if stereotypes impact learning processes. In addition to retention and transfer scores, cognitive load and motivational data of learners were collected. Results revealed that transfer performance is only enhanced when agents and texts activate together either old or young stereotypes, whereas retention performance was not affected by the manipulation. In addition, the manipulation did not result in differences in any cognitive or motivational scores. The results can be explained by the coherence principle which postulates that information from different media should be congruent in order to foster process fluency.

Although many of the existing educational videogames rely on leaderboard mechanisms, dedicated research on their effectiveness or how they should be implemented is missing. In this study, competitive effort, perceived difficulty and connected gameplay which are revealed to be core concepts of leaderboards, are manipulated to examine how leaderboards and competitive gameplay has to be designed to facilitate learning. Students had to play an educational videogame where players need to collect and retrieve information chunks about the function of power plants. They were randomly assigned to one cell of a 2 (low vs. high difficulty) x 2 (with or without penalties) between-subjects design. Data on retention knowledge, detail knowledge, learning efficiencies and goal orientations were collected. Results show that players with penalties scored higher on retention tests than players without penalties, whereas detail knowledge is enhanced by a low difficulty in contrast to a high difficulty. In addition, students with penalties learned and recalled the presented knowledge more efficient. An explorative analysis of goal orientations revealed influences of individual dispositions on affective responses and positive correlations with performance goals. The high dependence of learning outcomes on individual traits and gameplay characteristics demonstrates the need for more detailed research.

Numerous studies were conducted to investigate how recipients are affected by the miscellaneous characters in multimedia. However, there is a lack of research concerning the connection between parasocial processes and learning performances. This study aims to investigate the influence of addressing (as a social encounter of parasocial interaction ) on learning performance in an educational video. Addressing was operationalized by manipulating proximity (near vs. far) and orientation (frontal, vs. lateral) of a presented lecturer. We conducted an experiment with 88 participants who were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental groups. Results revealed a large significant orientation effect for retention performance with higher learning outcomes for frontal orientation. Proximity did not significantly influence learning outcomes. Results were interpreted suggesting perceived parasocial interaction which was enhanced in the frontal condition. Parasocial interaction might lead to deeper cognitive processing and affective states which are beneficial for learning. The findings of this study show that learning is fostered by personae in educational learning environments by giving learners the impression to be addressed directly through eye contact.

Interactive multimedia environments such as educational videogames offer great potential for learning in groups with multiple players. Multiplayer games might lead to competition among the learners which is frequently used to motivate them to play again. Additionally, competitive outcomes as discrepancies to a desired standard might differ between players and this type of feedback might influence learning. Therefore, the experiment seeks to investigate learning effects of different amounts of standard discrepancy and the choice to repeat levels. Standard discrepancy was operationalized by either showing a high learner score (low standard discrepancy) or a medium learner score (large standard discrepancy) at a leaderboard. Choice to repeat a level (possibility to repeat vs. no possibility to repeat) was manipulated by presenting or hiding a repeat button. An experiment was conducted with 85 students who played a jump-and-run game in order to learn facts about three allegorical paintings. Results revealed an effect of standard discrepancy on retention performance with higher scores for the high standard discrepancy condition. Choice did not influence learning outcomes, but improved motivational and emotional measures. Findings underpin the new role of leaderboards as feedback mechanisms. Investigation of the impact of standard discrepancy on learning.We demonstrate motivational effects of choice within educational videogames.We show functions of leaderboards as a feedback mechanism or competitive element.Stronger integration of the individual learning experience is proposed.

In multimedia learning settings, limitations in learners' mental resource capacities need to be considered to avoid impairing effects on learning performance. Based on the prominent and often quoted Cognitive Load Theory, this study investigates the potential of a single experimental approach to provide simultaneous and separate measures for the postulated load-inducing factors. Applying a basal letter-learning task related to the process of working memory updating, intrinsic cognitive load (by varying task complexity), extraneous cognitive load (via inducing split-attention demands) and germane cognitive load (by varying the presence of schemata) were manipulated within a 3 × 2 × 2-factorial full repeated-measures design. The performance of a student sample (N = 96) was inspected regarding reaction times and errors in updating and recall steps. Approaching the results with linear mixed models, the effect of complexity gained substantial strength, whereas the other factors received at least partial significant support. Additionally, interactions between two or all load-inducing factors occurred. Despite various open questions, the study comprises a promising step for the empirical investigation of existing construction yards in cognitive load research.

The emotional design hypothesis states that features in digital learning materials can elicit emotional reactions. Voice-related cues, such as enthusiastic accentuations are getting more into the focus of research. These emotion-related cues have to be additionally processed to the relevant instructions while learning, so that the overall amount of to-be-processed information might be a moderator of the effect of emotional cues. One hundred eighteen participants were assigned to one cell of a two (enthusiasm of a pedagogical agent: enthusiastic vs. neutral) × two (mental load in the working memory of the learner: high vs. low) factorial between-subjects design. Regarding the multiple-choice learning test, results revealed that learners with a neutral agent voice performed better in a high load condition, while learners exposed to an enthusiastic voice reached higher learning scores in a low load condition. However, this moderating effect of mental load could not be shown for open answer questions.

Lecturers in educational videos often use gestures to emphasize what has been said or highlight learning relevant information, which is visible on the screen. However, differences in types of lecturer gestures, such as rhythmic (beat) gestures and signaling (deictic) gestures, have not been investigated thoroughly yet concerning human lecturers in educational videos. In two experiments (N1 = 108; N2 = 121), participants received an educational video about weather phenomena (Experiment 1) or the industrial revolution (Experiment 2). Videos were manipulated in terms of the type of lecturer's gestures in the video (beat gestures vs. deictic gestures vs. no gestures). Learning outcomes, mental load and effort, parasocial interaction, social presence, affective rating, and agent-persona perception (Experiment 2) were measured. Results indicated a significant effect of gestures on retention performance in both experiments. In line with the signaling principle, deictic gestures enhanced learning outcomes. In contrast, beat gestures did not foster learning in comparison with a video without gestures. These results are interpreted considering lower mental load, higher social presence, and parasocial interaction in the signaling condition. In particular, attention towards the lecturer was significantly enhanced in the condition with deictic gestures in both experiments.