Facilitating Learning from Animated Instruction: Effectiveness of Questions and Feedback as Attention-directing Strategies

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative effectiveness of different types of visuals (static and animated) and instructional strategies (no strategy, questions, and questions plus feedback) used to complement visualized materials on students’ learning of different educational objectives in a computer-based instructional (CBI) environment. Five hundred eighty-two (N = 582) undergraduate students enrolled in an eastern university in the United States participated in the study. Students were randomly assigned to treatments and after interacting with their respective treatments, they received four individual criterion posttests to measure achievement of different educational objectives. Data analysis consisted of two phases. The first analyzed data that included all items in the four criterion posttests (80 items) plus a composite score. The second phase analyzed only the 34 enhanced items complemented by different instructional strategies and animation. Results indicated that students who received the animated visual treatment scored significantly higher on all criterion posttests than those who received the static visual treatment consistently for both phases of analysis. For the instructional strategy, students who received questions plus feedback or questions in their treatment scored significantly higher than those who received no strategy on selective criterion measures.