Optimising learning from animations by minimising cognitive load: Cognitive and affective consequences of signalling and segmentation methods

Prospective teachers learned about seven teaching skills either with or without (control group) an exemplar classroom video (Experiment 1) or animation (Experiment 2) showing how an expert teacher applied such skills. It was hypothesised that directing attention to relevant dynamic information with signalling (SI) and/or segmenting (SE) the video/animation into smaller chunks of information would facilitate students' learning. Across both experiments, the control group outperformed SI and SE groups on retention of the theoretical information but underperformed most video/animation groups when asked to evaluate and apply teaching skills to a classroom scenario. SE groups outperformed no-SE groups on all learning measures and reported lower levels of cognitive load. The findings encourage segmenting instructional videos and animations into small chunks to help novice students learn from complex dynamic visualisations. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.