Incorporating learner experience into the design of multimedia instruction

In Experiment 1, inexperienced trade apprentices were presented with one of four alternative instructional designs: a diagram with visual text, a diagram with auditory text, a diagram with both visual and auditory text, or the diagram only. An auditory presentation of text proved superior to a visual-only presentation but not when the text was presented in both auditory and visual forms. The diagram-only format was the least intelligible to inexperienced learners. When participants became more experienced in the domain after two specifically designed training sessions, the advantage of a visual diagram-auditory text format disappeared. In Experiment 2, the diagram-only group was compared with the audio-text group after an additional training session. The results were the reverse of those of Experiment 1: The diagram-only group outperformed the audio-text group. Suggestions are made for multimedia instruction that takes learner experience into consideration. The experiments reported in this article were designed to test some hypotheses generated on the basis of cognitive load theory (see Sweller, 1999, and Sweller, van Merrienboer, & Paas, 1998, for a recent review of the theoretical model). Central to the theory is the notion that working memory limitations should be a major consideration when designing instruction. Although working memory considerations are often overlooked, storage and processing limita