Computers & Education 56 (2011) 650658

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Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Using animations and visual cueing to support learning of scientic concepts and processes
Lijia Lin a, Robert K. Atkinson b, *
a b

Division of Advanced Studies in Learning, Technology and Psychology in Education, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 870611, Tempe, AZ 85287-0611, USA School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 878809, Tempe, AZ 85287-8809, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 30 September 2009 Received in revised form 7 October 2010 Accepted 8 October 2010 Keywords: Multimedia/hypermedia systems Humancomputer interface Interactive learning environments

a b s t r a c t
The purpose of the study is to investigate the potential benets of using animation, visual cueing, and their combination in a multimedia environment designed to support learners acquisition and retention of scientic concepts and processes. Undergraduate participants (N 119) were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions in a 2 2 factorial design with visual presentation format (animated vs. static graphics) and visual cueing (visual cues vs. no cues) as factors. Participants provided with animations retained signicantly more concepts than their peers provided with static graphics and those afforded visual cues learned equally well but in signicantly less time than their counterparts in uncued conditions. Moreover, taking into consideration both learning outcomes and learning time, cued participants displayed more instructional efciency than their uncued peers. Implications and future directions are discussed. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction As computer technologies advance, the use of graphics in computer-based educational environments has become commonplace and appears to be gaining increasing popularity. In the past several decades, a large number of studies have been conducted to investigate various issues concerning the benets of using static and dynamic graphical representations in multimedia learning environments. Two important issues are: (a) the relative effectiveness of the presentation format (i.e., animation versus static media) and (b) the potential instructional benets of visual cuing. This study investigates how these two factors (i.e., presentation format and visual cues), either separately or in combination with one another, inuence the retention of science knowledge in a multimedia learning environment. 1.1. Instructional animation According to Btrancourt and Tversky (2000, p. 313), animation is the visual representation that generates a series of frames, so that each frame appears as an alternation of the previous one. Therefore, by its nature, animation is able to vividly present events which change over time, such as motion, processes and procedures. It provides more external support for learners to construct their dynamic internal representations than static graphics. Some studies in the past decades have shown positive results that favor the use of instructional animations. For instance, Rieber (1990) provided participants with a computer-based lesson describing Newtons law of motion, using either static or animated graphics. The results revealed that participants in the animated graphics condition had a better understanding of theconcepts and rules of Newtons law than those in the static graphics condition. In another study, participants viewed either animation or static diagrams of chemical reactions during a lecture (Yang, Andre, & Greenbowe, 2003). The researchers found that participants who received the instructor-paced animation demonstrated better understanding of chemistry concepts than their counterparts studying static diagrams. Kriz and Hegarty (2007) conducted a series of experiments using an animated diagram and a static diagram to teach participants about a ushing system. They found that participants who learned from the animation had signicantly better comprehension of the system compared to those studying a static diagram, regardless of whether the animation was interactive or had signaling devices. In the metaanalysis conducted by Hfer and Leutner (2007), an overall-effect of animations was found among dozens of reviewed studies. Other
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 480 965 1832; fax: 1 480 965 7193. E-mail address: robert.atkinson@asu.edu (R.K. Atkinson). 0360-1315/$ see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.10.007

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studies also support animations effectiveness on learning (e.g., Arguel & Jamet, 2009; Ayres, Marcus, Chan, & Qian, 2009; Catrambone & Seay, 2002; Large, Beheshti, Breuleux, & Renaud, 1996; Mnzer, Seufert, & Brnken, 2009; Wong et al., 2009). It is of note that a positive learning effect was found for animations in a wide range of domains including science (physics and chemistry concepts), engineering (mechanical systems), and daily life skills (paper folding and knot making). Cognitive load theory (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003; Schnotz & Kurschner, 2007; Sweller, van Merrienboer, & Paas, 1998) provides a theoretical framework to explain the superiority of instructional animations over static graphics. It assumes that a humans working memory has limited capacity and considers learning as a process of schema acquisition. There are three subcomponents of cognitive loaddintrinsic load, extraneous load and germane load. Intrinsic load is determined by element interactivity and cannot be altered on the condition that the learners expertise has not changed and the learning material has been designated (Schnotz & Kurschner, 2007). Extraneous load is caused by inappropriate instructional format and is irrelevant to learning, whereas appropriate instructional design fosters learning-related cognitive activities, i.e., fosters germane load. By viewing instructional animations, learners do not exert cognitive effort to mentally construct dynamic representations. As a result, more cognitive resources are freed up, which could potentially be used for learning-related activities and deep processing. On the other hand, learning with static graphical representations requires information integration and inferential reasoning, which may impose considerable mental load on learners. These additional processing requirements may cause learners to experience cognitive overload, as indicated in some research ndings (Hegarty, 1992; Hegarty & Just, 1993). Tversky, Morrison and Betrancourt (2002) concluded that the superiority of animation found in some reviewed studies (e.g., Park & Gittelman, 1992; Thompson & Riding, 1990) should be attributed to the increased amount of information that is conveyed in animation compared to static graphics, rather than the animation per se. By controlling for the information delivered by different visualizations in a series of experiments, some researchers (Mayer, Hegarty, Mayer & Campbell, 2005) found that paper-based static media (i.e., illustrations accompanied with text) was neutral or even better to promote retention and transfer than computer-based system-paced animations with narrations. A cognitive load approach could provide one possible explanation of the failure of the animations effectiveness. Due to the animations transitory nature, learners need to study the current information delivered by the animation while at the same time referring to the previous learning content. As a result, learners may experience high level of extraneous load, which impedes learning. Mayer and Chandler (2001) found that learners, who studied with segmented, learner controlled animations, understood the lightning formation more deeply than their peers who viewed a whole, continuous unit of animation. Therefore, in order to mitigate the transitory nature of animation, learner control should be available to learners (Ayres & Paas, 2007). Segmentation and interactivity are the specic techniques to provide learners control over the learning environment (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). From the reviewed literature, the results of research designed to compare the effectiveness of animations and static diagrams are divergent and inconsistent. Some studies revealed the advantage of using instructional animations, while other studies showed the effects of animations and static graphics were equivalent with regard to learning. A few studies even reported that static visualizations were superior. Therefore, general comparisons between dynamic and static graphics without taking into account some specic issues will not lead to any systematic results and conclusions. As Hegarty (2004, p. 344) indicated, researchers should investigate what conditions must be in place for dynamic visualizations to be effective in learning. Hfer and Leutner (2007) found effect sizes in favor of animations differed for teaching declarative knowledge, problem-solving knowledge and procedural knowledge; procedural knowledge produced the largest effect size while problem-solving knowledge showed the smallest. Therefore, the animated-static comparison should take different types of knowledge into consideration. 1.2. Visual cueing In a multimedia learning environment, information is presented through visual and/or auditory channels via multiple formats, such as graphics, on-screen text and narrations. When graphics are presented with narrations, learners may need to search the relevant information on the visualizations to build connections between what they see and what they hear. In a learning environment where complex visualizations are presented, visually searching relevant information to match narrations held in the working memory may become difcult for learners, and lead to high extraneous load. Under such conditions, learners may perceive and comprehend information from obvious yet irrelevant parts of graphical representations, resulting in poor learning and performance (Lowe, 2003). Visual cueing is one of the techniques to direct learners attention in the multimedia environment. Visual cueing is the addition of non-content information (e.g., arrows, circles, and coloring) to visual representations. Research (de Koning, Tabbers, Rikers, & Paas, 2009; de Koning, Tabbers, Rikers, & Paas, 2010a) has shown that visual cues are effective to guide learners attention to animations in multimedia environments. As a result, visual cueing has the potential to facilitate the processes of selecting relevant information, which is one of the essential processes for active learning (Mayer, 2005). From the cognitive load perspective, a substantial number of studies have found that visual cueing is an effective method to reduce extraneous load in multimedia learning environments (for reviews, see Mayer & Moreno, 2003; Wouters, Paas, & van Merrinboer, 2008) and several studies supported the instructional benets of visual cueing (Atkinson, Lin, & Harrison, 2009; de Koning, Tabbers, Rikers, & Paas, 2007, 2010b; Jamet, Gavota, & Quaireau, 2008; Jeung, Chandler, & Sweller, 1997; Kalyuga, Chandler, & Sweller, 1999). For instance, de Koning et al. (2007) conducted a study to investigate the effectiveness of a cued animated cardiovascular system (using a spotlight effect). The researchers compared learning outcomes for participants who viewed a cued animation with those who viewed the animation without a visual cue. The results showed that participants in the cued animated condition had signicantly higher scores on both comprehension and transfer tests. Jamet et al. (2008) used a coloring technique as visual cues in their study. They found that participants who studied saliently colored graphics of the human brain performed signicantly better than the group that viewed non-salient colored graphics. In terms of efciency (Paas & van Merrinboer, 1993; van Gog & Paas, 2008), Kalyuga et al. (1999) found that color-coded diagrams promoted more efcient learning than conventional no-color-coding diagrams. 2. Overview of the experiment One purpose of the current study was to investigate whether animations were more effective than static graphics to promote learning, i.e., to retain concepts and processes about the rock cycle, an earth science content. The rock cycle is a model that involves formation,

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breakdown, and reformation between three main types of rocks on the earthdigneous rock, sedimentary rock and metamorphic rock. The content requires learners to learn concepts and processes, which comprise the cycle of rock. In order to retain knowledge about concepts and processes, learners need to accurately build dynamic mental models of how rocks are formed. Animations have the potential to facilitate knowledge construction with this type of learning content (Hfer & Leutner, 2007; Rieber, 1990; Yang et al., 2003). Therefore, we hypothesized that animations enhance retention of both concepts and processes. The study also investigated the potential cognitive benets of adding visual cues to visualizations to enhance science learning in a multimedia environment. Based on the literature reviewed in previous section, we hypothesized that visual cueing is effective to enhance learning. In addition to learning, cognitive load and motivation were also investigated. By providing learner control over animations, the transitory nature of animations could be overcome. Therefore, we expected that when comparing animations to static graphics, animations would reduce extraneous load and consequently foster germane load. We also expected visual cueing to reduce extraneous load in multimedia learning environment, which is in line with Mayer and Moreno (2003) and Wouters et al. (2008). Only a few studies have investigated learners motivation in multimedia learning, e.g., motivation in an agent-based environment (Moreno, Mayer, Spires, & Lester, 2001), in an online animation-based environment (Rosen, 2009) or motivation with young children with low cognitive interest (Kim, Yoon, Whang, Tversky, & Morrison, 2007). As motivation impacts learning (Boekaerts, 2007; Husman & Hilpert, 2007), this study explored the potential effects of animations and visual cueing on learners intrinsic motivation in the multimedia environment. Two independent variables were manipulated in the study: presentation format (animated vs. static graphics) and visual cueing (visual cues vs. no visual cues). Other variables, such as the instructional content, the level of learner control and the number of presentation segments were held constant. This study incorporated a number of dependent variables, including participants (a) learning outcomes, (b) subjective cognitive load and (c) intrinsic motivation. As there was no time restriction in the learning phase, learning time was measured as an en-route variable. Also, learners prior knowledge was statistically controlled in the study, as research revealed an interaction between learners level of prior knowledge and the instructional presentation format (ChanLin, 1998, 2001; Kalyuga, 2007, 2008; Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003). p Learning efciency scores were computed using the formula E zperformance zlearning time = 2, which was adapted from previous literature (Paas & van Merrinboer, 1993; van Gog & Paas, 2008) and was used by Gerjets, Scheiter, Opfermann, Hesse, and Eysink (2009). By using this construct, the current study has taken into account both learning outcomes and learning time. The greater the value of the learning efciency score, the more efcient the instruction. 3. Method 3.1. Participants and design One hundred and nineteen participants (61 males and 58 females) from a large southwestern university in the US participated in the study. They were students recruited from the general campus population as well as from educational psychology and introductory computer courses in the College of Education. They were all over 18 years old and their average age was 25.57 (SD 8.98). They were paid a small stipend ($10) for their participation. This study used a pretestposttest, 2 (animation vs. static graphics) 2 (visual cues vs. no visual cues) between-subjects design, in which the participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions: (a) static graphics with visual cues, (b) static graphics without visual cues, (c) animations with visual cues, and (d) animations without visual cues. Due to technical problems, data of seven participants were not recorded by the computer program. Therefore, they were excluded for analysis, leaving 112 participants in total (28 for each condition). 3.2. Computer-based learning environment The computer-based instructional materials were intended to deliver a lesson about the rock cycle. The characteristics of the three types of rocks (i.e., igneous rock, sedimentary rock and metamorphic rock) were described. Processes, such as volcano eruption, weathering, erosion and metamorphism, were also explained to show how different types of rocks transform into each other. By retaining concepts and processes in this domain, learners construct their internal representations of rock cycle. The learning environment was created using Visual Basic and was embedded with two-dimensional graphics created using Adobe Flash. In all of the four experimental conditions, participants listened to a female voice without foreign accent, narrating the content and simultaneously presenting the content-related graphics. The visual presentations differed among the four conditions. In the visually cued animation condition, participants viewed 20 segments of animations about the characteristics of the three main types of rocks and the transformation processes between each other. Visual cues (i.e., red arrows) were added to these animations to highlight important information. Specically, the arrows were used to highlight concepts (e.g., name of a rock) or processes (e.g., weathering). No other types of visual cues, such as circles, spotlight or hand pointing, were used. Participants assigned to the uncued animation condition viewed the same number of animation segments in the same order as the cued condition and with the same narrations but without the addition of any visual cues. In the cued-static-graphics condition (Fig. 1), 20 key frames taken from the corresponding segments of the cued animated graphics were presented to participants; whereas 20 key frames taken from the corresponding uncued animation condition were presented to participants assigned to uncued-static-graphics condition (Fig. 2). To keep the information delivered in the four conditions as equivalent as possible, the narrations accompanying each of the 20 static graphics were exactly the same as those accompanied the 20 segments of animations. Before the lesson, a tutorial screen (Fig. 3) appeared and a brief description of the navigation features and the multimedia environment was provided. Neither content-related graphics nor narration appeared in the tutorial. The content in computer-based lesson was segmented into 20 separate screens. In the animation conditions, learners could stop and start the narration and animation as often as they needed using the two control buttons located at the bottom of the animation on each screen. These buttons controlled both the animation and the narration in order to maintain visual and audio synchronization. In the two conditions where the graphics were static,

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Fig. 1. A sample segment of static graphic with visual cue.

learners were provided with the two control buttons to stop and start the narration. Each screen also included navigation buttons to allow learners to go back to the previous screen or go forward to the next screen to view visualizations. There was no time limit for learners to complete the lesson. However, their learning times (in minutes) were recorded by the computer program. 3.3. Measures and instruments A pretest consisting of 20 multiple choice questions was administered to measure participants prior knowledge about the content. Each test question had four choicesdone correct answer and three distracters. All items in the pretest were automatically scored by the computer program according to the following rules: 0 points for an incorrect answer or 1 point for a correct answer. Therefore, a maximum total of 20 points could be achieved on the pretest. A posttest was used to measure participants comprehension of the material after instruction. The posttest was almost identical to the pretest except that the order of the questions was different. The order of the pretest and posttest was determined by using a random number table. Since the content involved learning about concepts and processes in the rock cycle and

Fig. 2. A sample segment of static graphic without visual cue.

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Fig. 3. Tutorial screen.

knowledge retention was the learning goal, the test was divided into two sets of questions designed to measure both concept retention and process retention. Specically, there were 10 questions measuring learners concept retention and 10 questions measuring learners process retention. A similar way of labeling different forms of tests was also used by Jamet et al. (2008) and Mnzer et al. (2009). A sample test question for concept retention is What is the name of molten rock under the earths surface? with four choices (A. Magma; B. Lava; C. Sediments; D. Volcanic rock). A sample test question for process retention is According to the rock cycle, which of the following is incorrect? with four choices (A. Igneous rocks may metamorphose into metamorphic rocks; B. Magma may crystallize to form igneous rocks; C. Sedimentary rocks may weather to become igneous rocks; D. Metamorphic rocks may melt to become magma). We assume that learners have the ability to reect on their cognitive processes and provide their responses on numerical scales (Gopher & Braune, 1984; Paas, Tuovinen, Tabbers, & Van Gerven, 2003). Therefore, self-report measures were used to measure participants cognitive load and intrinsic motivation. Three subjective questions (i.e., task demands, effort and navigational demands, see Table 1) were used to measure each of the subcomponents of cognitive load (i.e., intrinsic load, extrinsic load and germane load). They were adapted from the NASA-TLX (Hart & Staveland, 1988) and were described in studies conducted by Gerjets, Scheiter, and Catrambone (2004) and Scheiter, Gerjets, and Catrambone (2006). According to Scheiter et al. (2006), a mapping was assumed between the theoretical subcomponents and the items of modied NASA-TLX. Participants rated each of the three questions on an 8-point Likert scale. For the rst question, 1 was labeled as easy in the rating scale and 8 as demanding; for the second question, 1 was labeled as not hard at all and 8 as very hard; for the third question, 1 was labeled as low effort and 8 as high effort. Participants intrinsic motivation was also measured by an 8-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 8 (very true). There were a total of 15 statements, adapted from Ryans study (Ryan, 1982), assessing intrinsic motivation with six subscalesdinterest, competence, value, effort, pressure and choice (see Table 2).

3.4. Procedure The experiment was conducted in a laboratory setting. At the beginning of the experiment, a researcher asked participants to sign a consent form for participation. Next, they were seated at an individual cubicle, facing a computer, and were briefed by the researcher about the procedure of the experiment. However, participants were unaware of the different conditions and the research questions included in the experiment. Then, they started the pretest on the computer with no time limit. After the completion of the pretest, each participant
Table 1 Cognitive load measurement. Item 1. How much mental and physical activity was required? That is, was the learning task easy (simple, forgiving) or demanding (exacting or complex)? 2. How hard did you have to work in your attempt to understand the contents of the learning environment? 3. How much effort did you have to invest in order to navigate the learning environment (e.g., for deciding between different hyperlinks, nding your way around)? Measure Task demands Indication of Intrinsic load

Effort Navigational demands

Germane load Extraneous load

L. Lin, R.K. Atkinson / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 650658 Table 2 Intrinsic motivation items. Item 1. I thought it was a boring activity. 2. I think I was pretty good at this activity. 3. I think that doing this activity could be useful. 4. I didnt try very hard to do well at this activity. 5. I did not feel nervous at all while doing this. 6. I believe I had some choice about doing this activity. 7. It was important to me to do well at this task. 8. I believe doing this activity could be benecial to me. 9. I felt very tense while doing this activity. 10. I did this activity because I had no choice. 11. This activity was fun to do. 12. I put a lot of effort into this. 13. This was an activity that I couldnt do very well. 14. I believe this activity could be of some value to me. 15. I would describe this activity as very interesting. Subscale Interest Competence Value Effort Pressure Choice Effort Value Pressure Choice Interest Effort Competence Value Interest

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was provided with a randomly assigned experiment ID number to start the computer-based lesson. Once the participants completed the lesson, a posttest was administered followed by a questionnaire. Neither activity had a time limit. The questionnaire had two parts: subjective cognitive load measures and intrinsic motivation measures. Upon completion of the posttest and the questionnaire, the participants were thanked and paid. The participants needed approximately 30 min to complete the entire study. 4. Results Table 3 presents the means, adjusted means (if available) and standard deviations for two types of learning outcome measures (i.e., concept retention and process retention), subjective cognitive load measures (i.e., task demands, effort and navigational demands), learning time and learning efciency for the four experimental conditions. All of the means for the learning outcome measures were transformed from raw scores to percentages. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical analysis. Cohens f was used as an effect size index. Accordingly, .02, .15 and .35 were dened as the values for small, medium and large effect sizes (Cohen, 1988). 4.1. Prior knowledge A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate whether participants prior knowledge signicantly differed across the four experimental conditions. There was no signicant difference of total pretest percentage scores across the four conditions, F(3, 108) 1.18, MSE .03, p .32, f .18. In addition, no signicant difference was found in participants knowledge on concepts (F(3, 108) .86, MSE .05, p .47, f .15) or processes (F(3, 108) 1.58, MSE .04, p .20, f .21). 4.2. Learning outcomes 4.2.1. Concept retention A two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was planned to evaluate the effects of presentation format (static vs. animated) and visual cueing (cued vs. uncued) on participants concept retention. The percentage correct score on the pretest for concept retention was used as

Table 3 Mean and standard deviations of test scores, cognitive load, time, instructional efciency and six subscales of intrinsic motivation. Animation Visual cueing M CR/pretest PR/pretest CR/posttest PR/posttest Task demands Effort Navigational demands Timea E Interest/IM Competence/IM Value/IM Effort/IM Pressure/IM Choice/IM 50.36 51.07 86.43 80.71 3.29 3.18 3.25 8.43 .28 5.71 6.14 5.67 5.42 2.11 6.96 SD .22 .19 .12 .17 1.58 1.87 2.38 .81 .71 1.36 1.45 1.44 1.65 1.33 1.14 Adj. M No visual cueing M 56.01 58.93 86.43 81.43 2.79 3.11 1.93 8.37 .02 5.94 6.91 6.57 5.8 1.48 7.13 SD .19 .18 .17 .18 1.71 2.03 1.63 1.34 .76 1.74 1.33 1.51 1.9 .82 1.27 Adj. M Static graphics Visual cueing M 55.36 47.86 83.21 79.64 3.07 2.89 2.32 7.87 .38 6.05 5.84 6.5 5.31 2.29 6.96 SD .23 .21 .16 .18 1.7 1.75 1.79 1.26 .84 1.58 1.54 1.57 1.81 1.6 1.4 Adj. M No visual cueing M 59.64 54.29 81.79 81.07 3.32 3.29 2.14 9.24 .45 5.64 6.32 6.17 5.57 2.23 7.39 SD .23 .22 .17 .15 1.88 1.86 1.58 2.45 1.08 1.7 1.72 1.31 1.4 1.42 1.06 Adj. M

88.07 81.45 3.19 3.09 3.15

86.19 79.21 2.91 3.22 2.07

83.21 81.59 2.96 2.78 2.19

80.38 80.6 3.41 3.37 2.24

Note. Measures of cognitive load and intrinsic motivation were on 8-point scales. Adj. adjusted. CR concept retention. PR process retention. E efciency. IM intrinsic motivation. Means of CR/pretest, PR/pretest, CR/posttest and PR/posttest and adjusted means of CR/posttest and PR/posttest are percentage scores. a The unit of time is minute.

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a covariate. A preliminary analysis was conducted to evaluate the homogeneity-of-slope assumption. It showed a non-signicant interaction between presentation format and the covariate (F(1, 108) 3.29, MSE .02, p .51, f .07) as well as a non-signicant interaction between visual cueing and the covariate (F(1, 108) .25, p .62, f .04), indicating that the relationship between the covariate and the dependent variable (i.e., concept retention) did not differ signicantly as a function of the two independent variables (i.e., presentation format and visual cueing). Therefore, ANCOVA was conducted. The analysis revealed a signicant difference between the animation conditions and static graphics conditions, F(1, 107) 4.18, MSE .02, p .04, f .20, indicating a medium-to-large effect of the superiority of animations (M 86.4%, SD .14) over static graphics (M 82.5%, SD .16). However, there was no signicant visual cueing main effect between the cued condition (M 84.8%, SD .14) and uncued condition (M 84.1%, SD .17) with regard to concept retention, F(1, 107) .81, p .37, f .09. Neither was there an interaction effect, F(1, 107) .03, p .85, f .02. 4.2.2. Process retention A two-way ANCOVA was planned to evaluate the effects of presentation format and visual cueing on participants process retention. The percentage correct score on the pretest for process retention was used as a covariate. The homogeneity-of-slope assumption was examined before ANCOVA was conducted. This preliminary analysis showed a non-signicant interaction between presentation format and the covariate (F(1, 108) .01, MSE .02, p .93, f .01) as well as a non-signicant interaction between visual cueing and the covariate (F(1, 108) .66, p .42, f .08), indicating that the relationship between the covariate and the dependent variable (i.e., process retention) did not differ signicantly as a function of the two independent variables. Therefore, ANCOVA was conducted. No signicant main effects were found between the animation condition and static graphics condition, F(1, 107) .07, MSE .02, p .80, f .03, as well as the visually cued conditions and uncued conditions, F(1, 107) .30, p .59, f .05. Nor was there a signicant interaction effect, F(1, 107) .05, p .83, f .02. 4.3. Subjective cognitive load Three two-way ANCOVAs were planned to evaluate the effects of presentation format and visual cueing on learners task demands, effort, and navigational demands, which were indications of intrinsic, extraneous and germane cognitive load respectively. The covariate was the percent correct score on all pretest questions so that participants prior knowledge was statistically controlled. Before each ANCOVA was conducted, the homogeneity-of-slope assumption was examined. This preliminary analyses showed: (a) for task demands, a non-signicant interaction between presentation format and the covariate (F(1, 108) .10, MSE 2.64, p .75, f .03) as well as a non-signicant interaction between visual cueing and the covariate (F(1, 108) .01, p .92, f .01); (b) for effort, a non-signicant interaction between presentation format and the covariate (F(1, 108) .08, MSE 3.22, p .78, f .03) as well as a non-signicant interaction between visual cueing and the covariate (F(1, 108) .97, p .33, f .09); and (c) for navigational demands, a non-signicant interaction between presentation format and the covariate (F(1, 108) .30, MSE 3.17, p .58, f .05) as well as a non-signicant interaction between visual cueing and the covariate (F(1, 108) 2.16, p .15, f .14). Therefore, planned ANCOVAs were conducted. With regard to task demandsdan indication of intrinsic load, neither main effects nor interaction was signicant: for presentation main effect, F(1, 107) .18, MSE 2.63, p .67, f .04; for visual cueing main effect, F(1, 107) .07, p .80, f .03; for interaction effect, F(1, 107) 1.45, p .23, f .11. Neither main effects nor interaction was found signicant for effortdan indication of germane load: for presentation main effect, F(1, 107) .06, MSE 3.24, p .81, f .03; for visual cueing main effect, F(1, 107) 1.09, p .30, f .10; for interaction effect, F(1, 107) .44, p .51, f .06. Moreover, neither main effects nor interaction was found signicant for navigational demandsdan indication of extraneous load; for presentation main effect, F(1, 107) 1.39, MSE 3.08, p .24, f .11, for visual cueing main effect, F(1, 107) 2.32, p .13, f .15, for interaction effect, F(1, 107) 2.90, p .09, f .16. 4.4. Learning time A two-way ANOVA was conducted to explore whether participants in the four experimental conditions had spent signicantly different times in studying the visualizations. A signicant difference was found between the visually cued conditions (M 8.15 min, SD .21 min) and the uncued conditions (M 8.81 min, SD .21 min), F(1, 108) 4.83, MSE 2.52, p .03, indicating that participants in the uncued conditions spent more time on learning than those in cued conditions. The effect size (f .21) showed a medium effect of visual cueing. No signicant difference was found between the animation conditions (M 8.40 min, SD 1.10 min) and static graphics conditions (M 8.56 min, SD 2.05 min), F(1, 108) .29, p .59, f .05. In addition, there was a signicant interaction, F(1, 108) 5.60, p .02, f .23. Therefore, analysis of simple main effects was conducted. To control for type I error, Bonferroni approach was used and alpha was set at .025 (.05/2). It was found that participants spent signicantly more time learning with uncued static graphics than those learning with cued static graphics, F(1, 108) 10.41, MSE 2.52, p .002, with a medium-to-large effect size (f .31). However, the times that participants spent studying cued and uncued animations were not signicantly different, F(1, 108) .01, p .91, f .01. No other signicant results were found concerning learning times. 4.5. Learning efciency According to Paas and van Merrinboer (1993) and van Gog and Paas (2008), raw scores (performance and time) should be transformed to z scores to compute the efciency. In order to take into account participants prior knowledge, gain scores (posttestpretest) were p computed and standardized. Therefore, learning efciency scores were computed by using the formula E zperformance zlearning time = 2. A two-way ANOVA was conducted to investigate whether participants learning efciency differed signicantly among the four conditions. The presentation main effect was non-signicant for the animation conditions (M .15, SD .74) and the static graphics conditions (M .03, SD 1.04), F(1, 108) 1.20, MSE .74, p .28, f .11; whereas a signicant visual cueing main effect was found between the visually cued conditions (M .33, SD .78) and the uncued conditions (M .21, SD .95), F(1, 108) 11.24, p .001, f .32. No interaction effect was found, F(1, 108) 3.04, p .08, f .17.

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4.6. Intrinsic motivation A two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to explore the effects of presentation formats and visual cueing on the six subscales of intrinsic motivationdinterest, competence, value, effort, pressure and choice. Means on each of the six subscales were computed and were used as dependent variables. No signicant difference was found on the six subscales for the presentation format main effect, Wilks lambda .92, F(6, 103) 1.51, p .18, f .30, nor the visual cueing main effect, Wilks lambda .90, F(6, 103) 1.85, p .10, f .33. Neither was there a signicant interaction, Wilks lambda .93, F(6, 103) 1.30, p .26, f .28. 5. Discussion One purpose of the study was to investigate the superiority of animations over static graphics in a multimedia learning environment. No previous research has investigated this issue in learning knowledge about rock cycle, which is one of the signicant contributions of the current study. We hypothesized that instructional animations should promote the retention of concept and process knowledge in the domain of rock cycle. This hypothesis was partially supporteddanimations promote learning concepts. In order to learn concepts about the rock cycle, learners need to construct internal representations of the rock cycle. From the results, we conclude that animations facilitate this knowledge construction. One possible explanation is that the changes over time that the animations showed corresponded to the nature of the rock cycle concepts. For instance, learners may benet from the animations showing that magma is the molten rock under the earths surface while lava is the molten rock coming out to the earths surface. According to Tversky et al. (2002), this correspondence is the condition for successful use of animations. The current nding is consistent with Hfer and Leutners (2007) results that revealed a medium positive effect for learning declarative knowledge with animations. As we have controlled the degree of interactivity, the number of presentation segments and accompanying narrations to be identical across all of the four experimental conditions, we can conclude that the animation effect in the study is not due to any of the above-mentioned three factors. In addition, it is worthwhile to indicate that no positive result of animations was found for the intrinsic motivation scale in the study. Therefore, we should not attribute the animation effect to motivation. It is the animation per se that facilitates concept retention in the domain. The study revealed a non-signicant pattern that on average participants who studied animations scored higher on process retention test questions than those who studied static graphics. As retaining information from animations greatly depends on the perception of animations (Lowe, 2003), it is likely that the animations presenting rock cycle processes are not salient enough to be perceived by the learners in both cued and uncued conditions. This implies that more visual cueing devices are needed for the visualizations. An eye tracking technique, tracking learners eye movements on animations, could be considered in future research to identify specic diagrammatic elements that need to be visually cued. With regard to cognitive load, we did not nd an animation effect for any of the three items intended to measure intrinsic, germane and extraneous load. This may be due to the fact that the subjective cognitive load measures were not administered during instruction. As a result, no distinction between concept retention and process retention can be made concerning cognitive load. In future research, we could consider modifying the cognitive load measures by specifying task demands, effort and navigational demands in learning concepts or processes of the domain content and administering them multiple times during the learning phase. By doing so, the limitation in the current study could be overcome. In addition, we also admit the possible measurement errors in measuring cognitive load, as currently the subjective rating scales make it difcult to distinguish each subcomponent of cognitive load (Schnotz & Kurschner, 2007). In this study, we also investigated the effect of visual cueing. In the past decade, literatures (de Koning et al., 2007, 2010b; Jamet et al., 2008; Jeung et al., 1997; Kalyuga et al., 1999; Mayer & Moreno, 2003; Wouters et al., 2008) revealed ndings that supported the instructional benets of visual cueing. Although in the current study no signicant visual cueing effect was found for learning outcome measures, signicant differences were found in learning time and efciency that favored visual cueing in an environment that does not impose time constraint on learning. Specically, when studying visually cued graphics, learners spent less time and learned more efciently than their peers studying uncued instructional materials. Furthermore, learners in cued-static condition spent less time than their peers in uncuedstatic condition. Therefore, the results of the current study partially conrmed our hypothesis that from the perspective of learning time and efciency visual cueing enhances learning. Visual cues may reduce learners search activity on the graphics, leading to the reduced learning time and the enhanced efciency in the learning environment that does not impose a time limit. Therefore, learners nally reached the same level of knowledge with different learning times due to the visual cueing effect. However, no cueing effect on cognitive load has been found in the current study. This is consistent with a few previous studies (de Koning et al., 2007, 2010a, 2010b). Learners low ratings on the three cognitive load measures and fairly high learning outcomes shed some light on the possible explanations. It is possible that the instructional content was not difcult for learners after they studied it for a certain amount of time. Consequently, this resulted in low self-report ratings on those subjective cognitive load measures. In future studies, more measures and techniques may be used to determine learners perceptions of difculty. For instance, we can consider adding more subjective questions to ask learners about their perceived difculty of the instruction and their frustration level. We may also consider using physiological measures in the future. Specically, physiological sensors can be used to measure a learners pressure on a mouse and the movements on a chair to reect his/her frustration and other emotional states (DMello, Picard, & Graesser, 2007). Also, electroencephalography (EEG) methodology can be used to assess variations of cognitive load (Antonenko, Paas, Grabner, & Van Gog, in press). Some empirical studies (e.g., Atkinson et al., 2009; Boucheix & Lowe, 2010; de Koning et al., 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Mautone & Mayer, 2001) only investigated the visual cueing effect in learning with animations. The results of the current study revealed that there was a visual cueing effect on learning time when comparing the two static graphics conditions, which is also one of the signicant contributions to the literature. The uncued static graphics prevented learning so that learners had to invest more time to compensate for disadvantaged learning. Our explanation is that the reduced time in learning cued static graphics may be attributed to the reduced visual search activity. This shows that adding visual cueing devices to static graphics, a simpler presentation format than animations, has instructional benets. However, the cueing effect disappeared when the instructional visualizations were animated (i.e., the interaction effect) suggesting that the type of visualizations is a potential moderator that inuences the visual cueing effect in multimedia learning. Therefore, we recommend researchers take the type of visualizations into consideration when conducting research on visual cueing in the future.

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