By Chris Drew

(Cover image from Rawpixel, CC0)

Chris Drew, PhD, is an eLearning Advisor and online university teacher. His academic research is focused on instructional design in online contexts. You can get in touch on via his personal blog: https://helpfulprofessor.com or follow him on Twitter: @helpfulprof.

An interesting debate has taken place in the past decade over whether learning materials should be aesthetically appealing to promote learning. This debate has made me think much more deeply about how I prepare my own handouts and seminar slides for my students.

In the 2000s, there was a significant body of literature that advocated a minimalist approach to the use of graphics in teaching materials. This literature argued that graphical decorations distract learners from the content (1). However, research in the past decade has increasingly presented the case for emotional learning design (2) which strategically employs graphical elements in content design to support learning.

The literature advocating the minimalist approach was predominantly driven by Mayer’s (1) work on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML). Mayer conducted scientific analyses that indicated that extraneous graphics on learning materials such as lecture slides act more as distractions than motivators in learning.

However, several influential analyses have also shown that effective emotional design can enhance learning. These learning scientists have shown that design elements such as cartoon graphics and a warm color scheme can positively impact learning in laboratory settings (2) (3).

To determine how to use aesthetically pleasing designs which support learning, it’s worth examining the underpinning research from Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and the Cognitive-Affective Theory of Learning with Multimedia (CATLM).

Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

Richard Mayer’s text Multimedia Learning (1) is one of the most influential books on multimedia design. This book was the cumulation of extensive empirical research on college students’ use of multimedia texts for learning.

Mayer’s approach uses cognitive load theory, which states that learners have a cap on the amount of information they can hold in their minds at any one time (4).Mayer argues that irrelevant images and sound effects can add load to a student’s information processing and induce cognitive overload. This could prevent learners from efficiently processing the essential content of the lesson. To minimize cognitive overload, Mayer proposed 12 principles for how to develop multimedia texts for learning.

Among the most important for this discussion is the coherence principle. The coherence principle highlights that unnecessary graphics, background noises, words and subtitles should be removed from multimedia texts. This unnecessary information becomes a distraction and increases cognitive load. In other words, learners become distracted by the aesthetic content that surrounds the data.

Mayer’s argument can be boiled down to this: When creating educational multimedia texts, the focus should be on representing the essential material in as clear and succinct a manner as possible to prevent cognitive overload.

Sounds logical.

Building on Mayer: The Evidence for Emotional Learning Design

While Mayer’s theory is widely acknowledged as a formative theory in multimedia design, many scholars (5) (6) (7) have worked on developing caveats to the theory in the past fifteen years.

One of the primary criticisms of Mayer’s earlier work has been that it has largely disregarded the role of affect (motivations, mood and emotions) in learning. Subsequently, cognitive-affective theories have built on Mayer’s work – led at times by Mayer himself (5).

Primary among the criticisms of Mayer’s earlier work is that he may not have paid sufficient attention to the role of motivation in learning. Visually appealing information (which Mayer classifies as ‘extraneous’) may sustain student interest and therefore prolong student engagement with the content.

Um et al. (3), for example, included 34 college students in a study comparing task performance on two multimedia texts with distinctly different aesthetic elements. They were:

• Neutral Design Features: Learning materials containing grey-scale images with plain shapes;

• Emotive Design Features: Learning materials containing warm colors and animalistic features like eyes and smiles.

Their study found that the emotive design features led to:

• Self-reported higher positive emotions from the learners;

• Increased motivation;

• A perception that the task was easier; and

• Higher comprehension!

In other words, the emotive design features led to increased motivation and better learning outcomes.

What Sorts of Aesthetic Features should I Include in my Multimedia Texts?

It appears that Um et al.’s (3) work has been more or less replicable in multiple subsequent studies (6) (2). Within this literature there emerge several specific elements of ‘emotional learning design’ that educators and instructional designers could pay attention to:

• Mixing words with images may help intrinsic motivation: It appears that a mix of words and images can have the effect of sustaining attention. Large amounts of uninterrupted text appear to be demotivating for learners, leading to decreased learner interest. By contrast, visually appealing texts may sustain intrinsic motivation (2). In other words, learners appear more likely to be interested in and more engaged with learning materials if the content is presented with visuals and texts rather than visuals alone.

• Warm color schemes arouse learners: Warm colors such as yellows, oranges and pinks appear to sustain arousal for longer than greyscale or cool colors. This may be because cool colors can lull readers into relaxed states and deter focus (6).

• Cartoon ‘baby face bias’ arouses learners: Anthropomorphic images can attract and sustain our attention longer than non-anthropomorphic images. Specifically, round faced cartoons with large eyes and small noses that appear baby-like appear to sustain our attention! While no one is entirely sure why this is the case, Um et al. (3) suggest such cartoonish images “evoke baby-like personality attributes, such as innocence, honesty, and helplessness, which induce positive affect in the learner.” (p. 488)

So, How should I Design my Materials?

Aesthetically pleasing texts can enhance positive emotions for learners. This can have the effect of increasing motivation and helping facilitate comprehension.

However, the literature indicates that aesthetic designs need a purpose. In other words:

• Mayer showed us that visually appealing but excessively irrelevant graphical features on multimedia texts seem to harm learning by causing cognitive overload. Images may be a distraction from learning; but 

• Subsequent cognitive psychologists have shown that visually appealing graphical features that direct our attention to the content could have benefits such as sustained motivation and attention to tasks.

My takeaway from these two claims is that making the central elements of my teaching materials more visually appealing can help by engaging students in the learning process. However, providing graphics and sounds that are overwhelming, clutter the text, and draw attention away from the task at hand can be a hindrance to learning.

In other words, go for nuanced, subtle design aesthetics that don’t drown out the focus of the lesson: the learning content.

References:

(1) Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

(2) Heidig, S., Müller, J., & Reichelt, M. (2015). Emotional design in multimedia learning: Differentiation on relevant design features and their effects on emotions and learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 81-95.

(3) Um, E., Plass, J. L., Hayward, E. O., & Homer, B. D. (2011). Emotional design in multimedia learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(2), 485-498.

(4) Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12, 257–285.

(5) Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. E. (2007). Interactive multimodal learning environments. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 309 –326.

(6) Park, B., Flowerday, T., & Brünken, R. (2015). Cognitive and affective effects of seductive details in multimedia learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 267-278.

(7) Plass, J. L., Heidig, S., Hayward, E. O., Homer, B. D., & Um, E. (2014). Emotional design in multimedia learning: Effects of shape and color on affect and learning. Learning and Instruction, 29, 128-140.

(8) Park, B., Plass, J. L., & Brünken, R. (2014). Cognitive and affective processes in multimedia learning. Learning and Instruction, 29, 125-127.