The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology) [Paperback]

Richard Mayer (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521547512 | ISBN-13: 978-0521547512 | Publication Date: August 15, 2005 | Edition: 1

During the past 10 years, the field of multimedia learning has emerged as a coherent discipline with an accumulated research base that has never been synthesized and organized. This reference constitutes an original work devoted to comprehensive coverage of research and theory in the field of multimedia learning. It focuses on how people learn from words and pictures in computer-based environments. Multimedia environments include online instructional presentations, interactive lessons, e-courses, simulation Games, virtual reality, and computer-supported, in-class presentations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a valuable, well organized, educationally relevant source. It will be valuable for education departments, psychology courses, communication departments, instructional technology personnel, or anyone who would like to use multimedia thoughtfully. Highly recommended."
--Choice

Book Description

People can learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone. This seemingly simple proposition--which can be called the multimedia learning hypothesis--is the main focus of The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Each of the 35 chapters in this Handbook examines an aspect of the multimedia learning hypothesis. In particular, multimedia researchers are interested in how people learn from words and pictures, and in how to design multimedia learning environments that promote learning.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 682 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (August 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521547512
• ISBN-13: 978-0521547512
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard E. Mayer is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where he has served since 1975. In 2000, he received the E. L. Thorndike Award for career achievement in educational psychology. In 2008, he received the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Contribution of Applications of Psychology to Education award. He was ranked #1 as the most productive educational psychologist in the world for 1991-2001 (Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 28, pp. 422-430). He is the author of more than 390 publications including 23 books, such as Multimedia Learning: Second Edition (2009), Learning and Instruction: Second Edition (2008), E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Second Edition (with R. Clark, 2008), and the Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (editor, 2005).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Collection of Multimedia Learning Research, July 12, 2008

By 

Ken D. Thomas (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology) (Paperback)

This is the single best collection of articles from today's leading researchers in multimedia learning available to date. The book provides an excellent sampling of research associated with how people learn through the combination of words (text and/or audio) and images (still illustrations or photos, animations, and/or video) available. Anyone working in multimedia learning will benefit from gaining a firm understanding of the principles presented throughout this book.

The book is divided into five parts:

Theoretical Foundations: Foundational learning theories, including cognitive load and how multi-modal message delivery (text/audio and graphics) support learning.

Basic Principles of Multimedia Learning: Research supporting key principles in the development of multimedia instruction and achieving multimedia learning, including split-attention principle, modality principle, redundancy, segmentation, coherence, signaling, spatial & temporal contiguity, and personalization.

Advanced Principles of Multimedia Learning: Research on the incorporation of multimedia products into a learning approach, including guided discovery, worked-out examples, collaboration, self-explanation, navigation, and prior knowledge.

Multimedia in Content Areas: Articles containing guidance for developing multimedia learning environments in various content areas, including reading, history, mathematics, chemistry, meteorology, physical systems, second language acquisition, and cognitive skills.

Multimedia Learning in Advanced Computer-Based Contexts: Focuses on multimedia in emerging technologies, including pedagogical agents; virtual reality; games, simulations, & microworlds; hypermedia; and e-courses.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars e-Learning Designer's Bible, September 24, 2009

By 

Sanatan Saraswati (QLD, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology) (Paperback)

Every instructional designer who designs for any form of electronic delivery (and this should be just about every ID out there) needs to know this. It should be a standard theory text for any university multi-media ID course.
To not be familiar with this research would raise doubts on anyone who considers themself an ID. To teach Multimedia ID and not include this as a fundamental resource, brings into question just what the objectives of such a course could be.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I really want to love this book, June 9, 2010

By 

David A. Lance - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology) (Paperback)

A student studies a diagram in a geometry text book. A shape. Angles. Measurements. Relation of lines and points to x and y coordinates. The student reads the text and is provided information about the relationships between components in the diagram. The student visualizes the relationships. They re-create the diagram in their imagination. That internal map, that working, evolving, fluid picture in their own imagination is what we call learning. And it is to that diagram, that animated and fluid diagram inside their head (which they ponder in their sleep) to which the student refers when asked questions on a test.

Learning is what happens naturally when information is presented to a human brain in an organized and respectful conveyance. The gifted teacher considers the student where they are. Provides an adequate and complete diagram. Points out the components they already know, and shows how a procedure will cause those components to relate to one another in a new way. Shows what can be done and how it is done, and how it fits the map already constructed in their mind. The student then returns to their own diagram and re-defines it to fit this new task. These new components. When the student can look at their diagram and know what can be done, and push toward the full potential of their own tools, when the student can think through new tasks by creatively combining and building upon their internal map, then that student will have learned.

Can that process really be measured?

One essay in the book - "The Modality Principle in Multimedia Learning" suggests that dendrites and h-channels form new protein best when information is presented in auditory and visual form.

If learning is forming synoptic pathways, flexing fluid dendrites, forming new protein connections between brain cells, then maybe dual streams of sensory inputs will yield a greater mass of synoptic cytoplasm then mono streams. It bears consideration when architecting a new video presentation. But is it really a superior presentation form? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps vibrating a human brain with all five senses blazing at full volume would yield up the greatest quantity of new synoptic protein connections. It is a hypothesis that could be tested easily enough. But even if it does, so what? Is optimal learning a function of wiring up a human brain to the maximal mix of sensory inputs? That takes care of the quantity of learning. What about the quality?

I love the earnestness of this book. The wide-eyed enthusiasm of the newly minted academics. The preponderance of their doctoral buzz words - cognitive load theory, spatial contiguity principles, and my favorite: comprehension theorists. They are so cute, I just want to squeeze them all. But beyond all that, there is a simple, profound experience to learning that we all know, and yet, that somehow eludes these exuberant essayists. The "I get it" experience. The moment when the material just gels. It clicks. It works. Voilla! Understanding. Eureka! What was hard is now easy. What was difficult a moment before now makes sense!

That is the instant of learning. That special achievement of focus, and proper presentation, and contextual alignment is the point of all educational effort. If that experience - whatever it is, (and I doubt it can be adequately described with academic buzz words), if that experience can be brought more rapidly to groups of students through the use of CD-ROM content, then this book may usher in something significant.

As far as I can tell, it does not. But it does seem to hint at some possible multimedia techniques that might be used to help usher students rapidly to that "a ha" moment, but only as a teaching tool in the hands of a skilled teacher.

And the jury is still out as to whether that teacher wouldn't have gotten them there just as fast with a piece of chaulk and a good ole wall of green slate.