Summary: Multimedia Learning and Individual Differences: Mediating the Effects of Working Memory Capacity with Segmentation
Title: “Multimedia Learning and Individual Differences: Mediating the Effects of Working Memory Capacity with Segmentation”
Name: Kate Gatlin
Date: 8/06/09

APA Reference: Lusk, D., Evans, A., Jeffrey, T., Palmer, K., Wikstrom, C., & Doolittle, P. (2009, July). Multimedia learning and individual differences: Mediating the effects of working memory capacity with segmentation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(4), 636-651. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) database.

Problem: Research on multimedia learning is mostly about design; little research has been done on the relationship between individual difference variables and the design, structure and delivery of multimedia learning. The article defines “individual differences” as working memory capacity. WMC, as they call it, is positively related to “higher cognitive tasks.” The researchers of the article wanted to delve deeper and study the effects that working memory capacity and segmentation of multimedia instruction has on the learner. Segmentation is when a multimedia tutorial provides the user with pacing control.

Context: 249 undergraduates took the OSPAN (Operation Span) working memory test. Of those 249, the upper and lower quartiles were selected for the study. This resulted in 133 undergraduates: 59 male and 74 female. 67 were in the upper quartile while 66 were in the lower quartile. The average age of these 133 participants was 20.1 years of age. These students received course credit for participation. These students were then randomly assigned to two groups, segmented (80) and non-segmented (53) instruction. At the end of the instruction, each student was tested on recall and application of the information they had learned about.

Findings: The study was trying to do two things: 1) evaluated the WMC hypothesis that those with high WMC will be able to learn and transfer more information from multimedia tutorials than those with lower WMC. 2) confirm the results of previous studies related to the segmented effect.

The study was able to confirm the working memory hypothesis because those with high WMC were able to recall more information than those who had a lower working memory capacity. Also, those with high working memory were able to give more valid interpretations of the information during the apply test. The study was also able to confirm the segmentation effect research because the results that they found were consistent with previous research.

Thus, this study provides evidence that individual differences do affect learning. Individuals with low WMC have difficulty learning from complex multimedia tutorials, and segmentation is a way to remedy that. Both those with low and high working media capacities perform equally in segmented multimedia instructional environments.

Recommendations: More research on this subject needs to be conducted, but given this research, instructional designers and educational technologies working with multimedia instruction should always include a segmented option in their instruction. If segmentation raises the ability of those with low working memory and does not reduces those with high working memory it seems silly not to create segmented instruction.