Different Visualization Types in Multimedia Learning: A Comparative Study

摘要

Visualization techniques is said to be beneficial to learning compared to static visuals, especially when the learning material demands visual movements. The emergence of 3-Dimensional animated visuals has extended the presentation mode in multimedia learning. A case study on a computer science subject was used to test the effect of different visualization types in learning. The field of computer science, especially in operating systems concepts uses an array of abstract concepts such as virtual memory, paging, fragmentations etc to describe and explain the underlying processes. Various studies together with our own observations strongly indicate that students often find these concepts difficult to learn, as they cannot easily be demonstrated. This study investigates the effects of different visualization types on student understanding when studying a complex domain in computer science, that is, the subject of memory management concepts in operating systems. A multimedia learning system was developed in three different versions: static visuals, 2-D animated visuals and 3-D animated visuals. Fifty five students took part in this study and they were randomly assigned into one of these three groups. All the students who took part in this experiment had low prior knowledge in this subject and after viewing the treatment, they were asked to take a test which tested them for recall and transfer knowledge. This test was used to determine if, in fact, improved learning actually occurred and to compare which visualization type produced the better learning outcome. Initial analysis of results indicates no statistical difference between the scores for the three versions and suggests that visualization types, by themselves, do not necessarily improve student understanding.