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- Vol 7 PE: App D
- Vol 7 RE: Chapters 1, 2, 4, App A, App B
multimedia learningdual-channel processinglimited cognitive capacityactive processingcognitive loadinstructional design principlesknowledge transfermultimedia instructionBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
The second edition of Multimedia Learning develops a research-based theory of how people learn from words and pictures. Mayer’s cognitive theory assumes separate verbal and pictorial processing channels, limited capacity in each channel, and active processing that selects, organises, and integrates information with prior knowledge.
Key ideas
The book reports controlled experiments behind twelve design principles, including coherence, signalling, redundancy, spatial and temporal contiguity, segmenting, pretraining, modality, multimedia, personalisation, voice, and image. These principles aim to reduce irrelevant processing, manage essential complexity, and encourage productive generative activity. Mayer repeatedly tests transfer, not merely recall, and discusses when learner characteristics or lesson conditions alter an effect. The guidance is conditional rather than decorative: adding pictures, narration, animation, or conversational language helps only when it supports appropriate cognitive processing.
Why it matters
For instructional designers and teachers, the central discipline is to match presentation choices to the architecture of human cognition and the lesson’s learning goal.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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