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Background: The use of e‐exams in higher education is increasing. However, the role of student diversity in the acceptance of e‐exams is an under‐researched topic. In the current study, we considered student diversity in terms of three sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, and second language) and three dispositional student characteristics (computer anxiety, test anxiety, and technology openness). Objectives: The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between student diversity and acceptance of e‐exams. Methods: Our research combined cross‐sectional analyses (N = 1639) with data from a natural experiment on the introduction of e‐exams versus the established paper‐pencil exams (N = 626) and used both self‐report and institutional data. Sociodemographic and dispositional characteristics were indirectly related to pre‐exam acceptance via expectancy variables from the Technology Acceptance Model framework. Results and Conclusions: Comparisons of post‐exam acceptance showed that practical experience with the e‐exam led to a significant increase in e‐exam acceptance, and that students with low openness toward technology particularly benefited from this effect. Students' exam performance (i.e., grades) was unrelated to the exam format or their pre‐exam acceptance of the e‐exam format, and this was true across students' sociodemographic and dispositional characteristics. Takeaway: Student diversity plays a role in e‐exam acceptance, but its influence is mitigated by first‐hand experience with e‐exams. The practical implications for higher education institutions aiming to implement e‐exams are discussed. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: The use of e‐exams in higher education is increasingThe role of student diversity for e‐exam acceptance is unclearTechnology acceptance is predicted by expectancies towards new system What this paper adds: We investigated students' sociodemographic and dispositional diversityDiversity predicted e‐exam acceptance via the expectanciesIn a natural experiment, first‐hand experience increased e‐exam acceptanceNo difference between performance in e‐exams and paper‐pencil‐exams found Implications of the study findings for practitioners: Higher education institutions implementing e‐exams should consider diversitySupport for older students and students with low technology openness neededNo student groups systematically disadvantaged by e‐exam implementationPractice rooms can increase experience with new system before exam [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is ample evidence that multimedia learning is challenging, and learners often underutilize appropriate cognitive processes. Previous research has applied prompts to promote the use of helpful cognitive processing. However, prompts still require learners to regulate their learning, which may interfere with learning, especially in situations where cognitive demands are already high. As an alternative, implementation intentions (i.e. if‐then plans) are expected to help regulate behaviour automatically due to their specific wording, thereby offloading demands. Accordingly, this study aimed at investigating whether implementation intentions compared with prompts improve learning performance, especially under high cognitive load. Students (N = 120) learned either in a control condition without instructional support, with prompts, or with implementation intentions. Within each condition, half of the participants studied the multimedia instruction under conditions of either high or low cognitive load, which was experimentally manipulated by instructing them to perform one of two secondary tasks. In line with our hypotheses, the results showed that under low cognitive load, both prompts and implementation intentions led to better learning than the control condition. By contrast, under high cognitive load, only implementation intentions promoted learning. Thus, implementation intentions are an efficient means to promote learning even under challenging circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way medical students learn anatomy is constantly evolving. Nowadays, technologies such as tablets support established learning methods like drawing. In this study, the effect of drawing on a tablet on medical students' anatomy learning was investigated compared to drawing or summarizing on paper. The quality of drawings or summaries was assessed as a measure of the quality of strategy implementation. Learning outcome was measured with an anatomy test, both immediately afterward and after 4–6 weeks to assess its sustainability. There were no significant group differences in learning outcome at both measurement points. For all groups, there was a significant medium strength correlation between the quality of the drawings or summaries and the learning outcome (p < 0.05). Further analysis revealed that the quality of strategy implementation moderated outcomes in the delayed test: When poorly implemented, drawing on a tablet (M = 48.81) was associated with lower learning outcome than drawing on paper (M = 58.95); The latter (M = 58.89) was related to higher learning outcome than writing summaries (M = 45.59). In case of high‐quality strategy implementation, drawing on a tablet (M = 60.98) outperformed drawing on paper (M = 52.67), which in turn was outperformed by writing summaries (M = 62.62). To conclude, drawing on a tablet serves as a viable alternative to paper‐based methods for learning anatomy if students can make adequate use of this strategy. Future research needs to identify how to support student drawing, for instance, by offering scaffolds with adaptive feedback to enhance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: When interpreting medical images such as dental panoramic radiographs (Orthopanthomogram, OPT), errors are frequent. Previous research has shown that eye movement modelling examples (EMME) are a supportive training method for medical image interpretation to reduce errors. To date, EMME support for OPTs has not been verified. Objectives: We investigated whether a training with EMME and verbal explanations supports dental students in evaluating OPTs. Methods: Dental students were randomly assigned to an intervention (N = 42) or a control group (N = 41). The intervention group received the EMME between pre‐ and post‐test. In a laboratory study, we measured students' gaze behaviour during evaluating OPTs and the detection rate of anomalies. Results and conclusions: The training led to fewer, shorter, and later fixations on anomalies and no difference in visual coverage of the OPT. The detection rate of anomalies did not improve. We replicated the latter finding in an online study (N = 31). Students may not have been able to apply the information from the EMME to detect anomalies. The image reading processes changed to more efficient rather than deeper visual search. Major takeaways: This study evaluated a training method with EMME for anomaly detection of OPTs. EMMEs did not improve the anomaly detection of dental students and changed their visual search process toward a more efficient rather than a deeper search. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Dental students and dentists commit many errors when interpreting radiographs.Validated interventions to support radiograph interpretations are lacking.Eye movement modelling examples (EMME) consist of videos showing an expert's gaze behaviour while performing a visual task.EMME improve processing of visual information in other domains (e.g., multimedia learning, chest x‐rays). What this paper adds: We investigated whether EMME improved detection of anomalies and gaze behaviour for dental students.Three EMME videos of dental experts explaining their behaviour and observations were presented to students.Studying the EMME videos did not improve the detection of anomalies.The gaze behaviour changed to a more efficient visual search. Implications for practice and/or policy: EMME do not seem to be effective as a short‐term intervention to improve anomaly detection for dental students.Further research is needed to develop effective training methods that could be applied in university teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating multiple representations into a coherent mental model is one of the challenges when learning with multimedia. In this experimental study (N = 173), we examined how highlighting corresponding information in text‐graph learning material can help higher education students to make the necessary connections and improve learning outcomes in two domains. We compared a control condition to a signaling condition with given highlights and an active signaling condition where students were asked to visually highlight corresponding text and graph information themselves. There was no overall benefit of given signals or active signaling. We discuss prior knowledge and the quality of learner‐generated signals as possible explanations. For biology learning material, prior knowledge moderated the effect of active signaling. In economics, the effect of prior knowledge was mediated by the quality of learner‐generated correspondences. Our findings suggest that different methods of supporting text‐graph integration might be useful for different students and learning material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is well established that successful learning with multimedia is challenging, especially for younger learners. Aims: It was investigated whether students would profit from instructional support regarding the use of multimedia learning strategies. Sample: Participants were high school students in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade (N = 168). Methods: Participants were assigned to a no‐support control group or one of four experimental groups. In the experimental groups, students received either only a multimedia strategy training before learning (training group) or the training was enriched by prompts (prompts before or during learning) or if‐then plans (implementation intentions). In the training, multimedia learning strategies were introduced (e.g., linking information from text and picture). The prompts and implementation intentions were aimed at enhancing the application of the multimedia strategies conveyed through the training. Students learned about the process of mitosis by studying multimedia instructions and were tested regarding the acquired knowledge. It was expected that solely training students to use adequate multimedia learning strategies would not promote learning compared with the control group, rather, that additional support like prompts or implementation intentions would be necessary to enhance learning. Results: Although in the experimental groups, multimedia learning strategies were used more frequently especially in the beginning of the instructional unit, there were no effects on learning outcome. Conclusions: Promoting multimedia strategy use did not improve learning. The quality of the different instructional support measures and their suitability for the target groups are discussed as possible explanations for these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dental students commit many errors when diagnosing radiographs. To improve performance, students were asked to compare radiographs (with and without disease or with the same disease); relevant structures were highlighted in the radiographs. In a crossover design, students were randomly assigned to two groups differing in training order: Students in the peripheral‐central‐group (N = 39) were first trained to detect anomalies in the periphery before receiving training on anomalies in the center; the trainings in the central‐peripheral‐group (N = 39) were reversed. We measured detection rates and gaze behavior before and after each training. The detection rates after the first training revealed differences in line with our expectations; moreover, when accounting for varying difficulty of the tests sets there were within‐groups improvements in the peripheral‐central group. Unexpectedly, the gaze behavior was unaffected by the intervention. We discuss shorter learning times and sequence effects as potential causes for our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multimedia learning, graphs are seen as just one specific instance of pictorial representations requiring the same cognitive processes as realistic depictions. Accordingly, learning from text‐graph combinations should also benefit from the same instructional support such as signaling of text‐picture correspondences depending on learners' prior knowledge. We investigated whether this expertise reversal of the signaling effect could be replicated for text‐graph combinations. Students (N = 101) with different prior knowledge levels learned with text‐graph combinations that were either enhanced with signals or not. Results indicate an expertise reversal effect on learning outcomes. A moderated mediation analysis of students' visual attention showed that this pattern could be explained by the fact that students with low prior knowledge (LPK) fixated the graph information earlier, whereas high prior knowledge students fixated the graph later when signals were present. Our results suggest that instructional support should be adapted to students' prior knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Eye movements reveal what is at the center of people's attention, which is assumed to coincide with what they are thinking about. Eye‐movement displays (visualizations of a person's fixations superimposed onto the stimulus, for example, as dots or circles) might provide useful information for diagnosing that person's performance. However, making inferences about a person's task performance based on eye‐movement displays requires substantial interpretation. Using graph‐comprehension tasks, we investigated to what extent observers (N = 46) could make accurate inferences about a performer's multiple‐choice task performance (i.e., chosen answer), confidence, and competence from displays of that person's eye movements. Observers' accuracy when judging which answer the performer chose was above chance level and was higher for displays reflecting confident performance. Observers were also able to infer performers' confidence from the eye‐movement displays; moreover, their own task performance and perceived similarity with the performer affected their judgments of the other's competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This contribution is a commentary to a special issue titled "Example‐based learning: New theoretical perspectives and advances to a contemporary instructional approach" published in Applied Cognitive Psychology (2020). In the commentary, the presented research is discussed with respect to three extensions compared with previous research, namely, theoretical frameworks, learning scenarios and domains. It concludes with some suggestions for methodological advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Text–picture integration is one of the most important cognitive processes when reading illustrated text. There is empirical evidence that text‐picture integration takes place when learning with pictures combined with single sentences. The present experiment investigated whether text–picture integration also takes place when the single sentences are embedded into longer text segments and hence when materials become more complex. In a within‐subjects design, 43 participants read an illustrated story, in which the different combinations of general and specific sentences and pictures, respectively, were embedded. In line with previous findings, participants were more likely to falsely recognize specific versions of the sentences after having studied their general versions combined with specific pictures. Thus, the experiment shows that text–picture integration also occurs when learners have to read longer text passages combined with pictures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was investigated whether the beneficial effect of picture presentation might be influenced by the content conveyed through text and pictures and the way information is distributed between them. Ninety‐nine students learnt in five between‐subjects learning conditions (i.e., text with spatial contents plus pictures, text with visual contents plus pictures, only text with spatial contents, only text with visual contents, only picture) about a tourist centre and a holiday farm. Results showed that pictures (i.e., maps) were beneficial for learning if spatial knowledge had to be acquired, but did not support learning when non‐spatial, visual knowledge had to be acquired. Furthermore, a high overlap of spatial information in text and picture was helpful, which can be explained by the assumption that learning is a text‐guided process. On the other hand, regarding non‐spatial visual information, a high text‐picture overlap did not influence learning, probably because text alone was sufficient for acquiring visual knowledge. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Although the presentation of extraneous (i.e., irrelevant or unnecessary) information hinders learning, it is unclear whether and how layout and pacing influence this effect. In two experiments, participants learned how the heart functions using four different layouts: a diagram presented without unnecessary text (diagram only), with unnecessary text separated from the diagram (separated) or integrated into the diagram (integrated), or with separated unnecessary text and the instruction to integrate (integration instruction). In Experiment 1, study time was self‐paced for half of the participants and system paced for the other half. There were no effects of layout and of pacing on learning, although system pacing was more effortful than self‐pacing. In Experiment 2, which was system paced and employed eye tracking, the integrated condition showed worse learning outcomes than the separated condition. Moreover, in the integrated condition, participants made more integration attempts between the unnecessary text and the diagram than in the separated condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The presentation of extraneous (i.e., irrelevant or unnecessary) information may hamper learning with multimedia. The present study examined whether people can learn to ignore unnecessary information with increasing experience with the task and whether this depends on the layout of that information. In two experiments, participants learned about the process of mitosis from a multimedia slideshow, with each slide presenting a combination of expository text and a picture on one of the stages in the process. Slides either contained no unnecessary text (control condition) or unnecessary text (i.e., merely describing the picture) either integrated in the picture (integrated condition) or presented underneath the picture (separated condition). Knowledge about the studied mitosis phase was tested immediately after each slide using a cloze test. Across Experiments 1 and 2, we did not find a reliable negative effect of the unnecessary text on cloze test performance. As a result, the question of whether task experience would reduce or eliminate that negative effect could not be answered. The eye movement data did confirm, however, that participants attended less to the unnecessary information with increasing task experience, suggesting that students can adapt their study strategy and learn to ignore unnecessary information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: When learning with text and pictures, learners often fail to adequately process the materials, which can be explained as a failure to self‐regulate one's learning by choosing adequate cognitive learning processes. Eye movement modelling examples (EMME) showing how to process multimedia instruction have improved elementary school children's learning from text and pictures in previous studies. Aims: We tested whether the positive effects of EMME for improving self‐regulated multimedia learning extend to university students and teaching of more comprehensive processing strategies. Moreover, we investigated whether EMME's effectiveness depends upon a learner's cognitive prerequisites. Sample: Participants were 50 university students (38 female; M = 26.88 years) with different study majors. Methods: Different prior knowledge aspects were assessed as cognitive prerequisites. Before learning about mitosis from a multimedia instruction, students either received no intervention or saw EMME demonstrating various multimedia learning processes. Learning outcomes and eye movements served as dependent variables. Results: Learners in the EMME group showed more intense processing of pictures and more frequent transitions between text and pictures. Weaker learners showed poorer recall performance after having studied EMME, whereas EMME had no effect on stronger students. In the forced‐choice verification task, stronger students benefitted from EMME, whereas no effect occurred for weaker students. The picture‐processing time was suited to explain the positive effects of EMME for stronger students. Conclusions: Our results indicate that EMME illustrating a comprehensive set of cognitive processes support multimedia learning for stronger university students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to explore two accounts for why sketching during learning from text is helpful: (1) sketching acts like other constructive strategies such as self-explanation because it helps learners to identify relevant information and generate inferences; or (2) that in addition to these general effects, sketching has more specific benefits due to the pictorial representation that is constructed. Seventy-three seventh-graders (32 girls, M = 12.82 years) were first taught how to either create sketches or self-explain while studying science texts. During a subsequent learning phase, all students were asked to read an expository text about the greenhouse effect. Finally, they were asked to write down everything they remembered and then answer transfer questions. Strategy quality during learning was assessed as the number of key concepts that had either been sketched or mentioned in the self-explanations. The results showed that at an overall performance level there were only marginal group differences. However, a more in-depth analysis revealed that whereas no group differences emerged for students implementing either strategy poorly, the sketching group clearly outperformed the self-explanation group for students who applied the strategies with higher quality. Furthermore, higher sketching quality was strongly related to better learning outcomes. Thus, the study's results are more in line with the second account: Sketching can have a beneficial effect on learning above and beyond generating written explanations; at least, if well deployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When learning with multimedia, text and pictures are assumed to be integrated with each other. Arndt, Schüler, and Scheiter (Learning & Instruction, 35, 62-72, 2015) confirmed the process of text picture integration for sentence recognition, not, however, for picture recognition. The current paper investigates the underlying reasons for the latter finding. Two experiments are reported, where subjects memorized text-picture stimuli that differed in the specificity of information contained in either sentences or pictures. In a subsequent picture recognition test, subjects showed no integration effect after a 30-minute delay (Experiments 1 and 2), but only after a 1-week delay (Experiment 2). Furthermore, eye-tracking data showed that participants sufficiently processed the pictures during learning (Experiment 1). This data pattern speaks in favor of the assumption that after a short delay participants had available a short-lived pictorial surface representation, which masked the integration effect for pictorial recognition.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of four experiments, we examined the impact of disfluency in multimedia learning by testing contrasting predictions derived from disfluency theory and cognitive load theory against each other. Would a less legible text be beneficial to learning when accompanied by pictures, and what would be the role of less legible pictures? Students (N = 308) learned with text and pictures that were either easy-to-read (i.e., fluent) or harder-to-read (i.e., disfluent) about how a toilet flush works (Experiments 1-3) and about how lightning develops (Experiment 4). In line with disfluency theory, a disfluent text led to better performance in the transfer test and to more invested mental effort in Experiment 1. However, these beneficial effects could not be replicated in Experiments 2, 3, and 4, leaving open questions regarding the stability and generalizability of the disfluency effect, and thus raising concerns regarding its impact for educational practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the reported experiment was to obtain insight into how learners' visuo-spatial working memory is involved during learning how to perform procedural-motor tasks from a multimedia instruction (i.e. 'learning how'). Eighty-two participants studied first-aid procedures using text only or multimedia. Working memory involvement was gauged by measuring the interference between learning first-aid procedures and performing a spatial dual task. Learning outcomes were measured as task performance and task description. The results showed that performing a spatial dual task interfered to a larger extent with learning from text only than from multimedia. The results tend to support the assumption that pictures in tasks focusing on 'learning how' are beneficial to learning, because they might omit the need to engage in imagery and therewith reduce the cognitive effort that is required to understand the learning material. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated how a picture fosters learning from text, both with self-paced presentation and with short presentation before text. In an experiment, participants (N = 114) learned about the structure and functioning of a pulley system in one of six conditions: text only, picture presentation for 150 milliseconds, 600 milliseconds, or 2 seconds, or self-paced before text, or self-paced concurrent presentation of text and picture. Presenting the picture for self-paced study time, both before and concurrently with text, fostered recall and comprehension and sped up text processing compared with presenting text only. Moreover, even inspecting the picture for only 600 milliseconds or 2 seconds improved comprehension and yielded faster reading of subsequent text about the spatial structure of the system compared with text only. These findings suggest that pictures, even if attended for a short time only, may yield a spatial mental scaffold that allows for the integration with verbal information, thereby fostering comprehension. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the series of studies discussed within the issue is presented, which included an investigation into how graphic layouts affect visual attention distribution in newspaper reading, and another study on learning with multiple representations in the area of mathematics.

In a commentary to our article, Oppenheimer and Alter stressed the importance of searching for moderators in disfluency research. We agree, but we would like to clarify two issues. First, unlike Oppenheimer and Alter, we assume that learner characteristics might indeed moderate the effects of disfluency. Second, conclusions concerning the impact of disfluency in educational settings might be biased because of the file-drawer problem. To counteract this possibility, we want to encourage other researchers to publish their studies--regardless of whether they found (positive) effects of disfluency or not. Until then, any recommendation concerning the use of disfluency as an educational intervention seems premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]