The Relative Effectiveness Of Eye Movement Modeling Examples And Conventional Visual Cues And Verbal Strategy Instruction In Multimedia Learning

Eye movement modeling examples(EMME)consist of gaze replays of a model who was performing a task.In the field of multimedia learning,the research on EMME can be divided into two types.The first type mainly focuses on the visual guiding effect of the model’s gaze in the eye movement modeling examples.That is,to explore whether the gaze of model superimposed on learning materials can promote the selective attention of learners,which in turn facilitates the learning performance.However,the second type of research mainly demonstrates an effective visual strategy by presenting the visual processing of models.In the field of multimedia learning,previous studies mainly focus on teaching learners visual strategies for the integration processing of text and picture.Whether EMME mainly for guiding visual attention have different effects on learning compared to conventional visual cues?This is the first question to be explored in this study.The second research question to be explored in this study is whether the effect of EMME on the acquisition of reading strategies and reading comprehension performance is different form providing learners with reading strategy directly.Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 focused on question 1,which were designed to investigate the effect of EMME and conventional visual cues under conditions with different learning time.In Experiment 1,college students watched short animation that explained synaptic transmission.The control group directly watched the animation;The EMME group watched the animation superimposed with the eye movements of the model when she learning the content.The conventional visual cue group watched animation with color cues added.In Experiment 1,we found that in the short animation,both EMME and conventional visual cues had positive effects on visual attention,retention and transfer performance.Compared with the conventional visual cues,the EMME showed stronger attentional guidance,but this stronger effect did not lead to better learning performance.In Experiment 2,college students learned about mitosis and meiosis by watching a long animation.As in Experiment 1,the subjects were divided into three groups:the EMME group,the conventional visual cue group,and the control group.In Experiment 2,we found that EMME and conventional visual cues had a positive effect on attention and transfer performance,and EMME had a positive effect on retention performance in the long animation.As in Experiment 1,the EMME showed stronger attentional guidance than conventional visual cues,but this stronger attentional guidance did not translate into better learning performance.Experiment 3 is for research problem 2.In Experiment 3,the subjects learned by reading the illustrated materials about cell division.The learning materials were divided into two parts:the basic concept of cell division and the specific process of the two ways of division.Participants in the EMME group first watched the eye movements of the model when she used effective reading strategy to read the first part of the content.Then they answered questions about how the model read the material.Finally,participants used the reading strategies demonstrated by the model to read the rest of the material.In the verbal strategy group,the participants practiced using the reading strategies provided by the experiment when reading the first part.Then the experimenter took away the specific reading strategies and required the subjects to use the reading strategies as much as possible in the following reading process.Participants in the control group read the material directly.In Experiment 3,it was found that the use of EMME to model integrated processes of textual and pictorial information and direct verbal strategy instruction improved the picture fixation time of learners while reading new content,and promoted the retention performance.In conclusion,the results of this study are as follows:(1)both EMME and conventional visual cues can promote visual attention and learning performance under both short and relatively longer animation learning conditions.Although EMME had some advantages over conventional visual cues in attentional guidance,they did not translate into better learning performance.(2)The use of EMME to indirectly demonstrate integrating processing of text and picture and direct verbal reading strategy instruction for learners can both promote the learners’ picture fixation time and the retention of the reading content.