Preliminary Quantitative Evaluation of Effect of Learning from Text, Illustrations, and Animations on Understanding

Animation is often used to aid understanding of information and to facilitate learning. However, in many studies, the benefits of animation have not been proved. There is also a problem that information contained in one sort of content might not match that of another sort of content. In this study, three experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of the sort of presentation of learning content on understanding. The animations and illustrations used in the experiments included all of the information of the text. The posttest scores from the first two experiments confirmed the benefits of the animation presentation. However, experiment 3 using a dual-task methodology to assess the cognitive load did not show benefits of animation presentation. However, using a visual stimulus in a secondary task was found to have a significant effect. This effect will be considered in the next experiment.