Chapter 3: Fostering Learning with Visual Displays

The design of visual displays with words should be based on evidence-based principles. Three principles for reducing extraneous processing during learning (i.e., cognitive processing that does not support an instructional goal) are coherence (reduce extraneous material), spatial contiguity (place printed words near corresponding part of visual display), and signaling (highlight essential material). Three principles for managing essential processing during learning (i.e., cognitive processing needed to mentally represent the presented material) are segmenting (break material into parts), pretraining (familiarize learners with key terms), and modality (put words in spoken form). Three principles for fostering generative processing (i.e., deeper cognitive processing aimed at making sense of the material) are personalization (use conversational style), embodiment (have instructors use human-like gesture), and voice (use human speech rather than machine speech). Boundary conditions for each principle are based on a cognitive theory of how people learn.