What learning principle says don't put different text on screen than what is narrated?

Mar 18, 2015

Does anyone remember the learning principle/best practice  with e-learning/Power Point presentations where it says when on screen text is used and there is correlating/supporting narration that the designer shouldn't put text that is totally different from what is being narrated. 

I know about the Redundancy Principle; but I'm talking about when their IS on screen text being used and their is narration referring to the text (not talking about whether it is effective to do that since we are sometimes forced by our employers to create this kind of e-learning with bullet-pointed-click-and-read modules).  

For example on a screen for a 2 min refresher e-learning module about a medical casework/furniture's features a contractor had this as a bullet point: 

* Strong and sustainable components

But the narration would say this for this point: "Steel hardware attached to a steel frame is designed to have 60-90% more resistance to hardware failure than typical mill work. Uni-body seamless tub drawers will not fall apart or de-laminate at the seams."  

 

4 Replies
James Morris

Hi,

 If we look at the redundancy principle, we can see that it wants designers to avoid narration, captions, and graphics all at the same time. The reasoning behind this is avoid overloading one of our dual channels (visual and audio). They state that using both captions and text, we may over-stimulate our visual channel.

You ask an interesting question. If it is better to have graphics and narration because we are using both channels, would it be okay to replace those graphics with on-screen text? In other words, does on-screen text use our visual channel, and does narration use the auditory channel? And is it okay for the visual channel to be text? Or does it have to be a graphic?

I would avoid using text that differs from the narration, but only out of caution. I don't think there is enough data yet to support that idea. I don't which principal Mayer would categorize that under, but the Temporal Contiguity principle states that learners will learn better when on-screen text and associated images or animations are displayed simultaneously, rather than separate. Also, the Coherence Principle says students will learn better when gratuitous content is excluded.

Having said that, I wish I had time to read Mayer's book again. I'm sure there is a section that covers it. 

Basically, more research needs to be done. Even Mayer (& Clark) has alluded to more research needed depending on the situation.

Steve Flowers

I think the issue you describe above relates more to parallelism than the redundancy principle. redundancy indicates the text should not be exactly the same as what's being read as it could interfere with processing of meaning through two different channels.

The example you provide is mostly parallel but I think an order and hinting might improve things. I'm not seeing how the narration indicates sustainability (maybe tangentially but there may be a better word). The value is in the construction, so I'd use that in the onscreen. 

It depends on the goal of the statements. If it's customer education (we want to tell the story of "why better") then I think an adjustment works on both sides to improve the parallelism while improving the focus of the statement. I could be totally wrong with the rewrite. But based on limited info, we go on gut feel:)

  • Constructed using strong and reliable components.

"Reliable components provide better value over time. Steel hardware attached to a steel frame will last up to 90% longer than typical mill work. Uni-body seamless tub drawers won't fall apart or de-laminate at the seams. "

** Depending on your narrator's diction and the context / construction of the narration, you may want to increase use of contractions. Usually sounds better and is more conversational. 

Steve Flowers

Thinking more about this, you might have a better time using images with callouts to illustrate points. This further drives parallelism while keeping the visual channel bite sized and in sync with the contiguous audio channel.

[Image of drawer assembly - callout: "strong and reliable components"]

[Image of milled assembly appears next to first image - callout replace with "last up to 90% longer"]

[Image of uni-body tub replaces previous images - callout appears "seamless tub drawers won't fall apart"

Brian D

Thank you James and Steve for taking the time to provide your thoughtful responses. I wasn't really asking any questions in relation to the Redundancy Principle. It seems like I read what I'm talking about somewhere in Mayer's/Clark's readings. I think what this was about after thinking on it more is that the way we have it set up is the on-screen text fades in at the exact time the referring narration is spoken for each point. So with my point of view this won't work. However if one were to allow a pause for the phrase to be revealed at like .05 secs before the narration then maybe someone could technically read the info on their own and comprehend it and then the narration says something different. But I don't agree with this method. 

I think Steve your point makes  sense where it is a kind of parallel issue in part where throughout the rest of that screen and on all other others the contractor had shortened bulleted phrases that represented what was being spoken. Why make it different on that bullet point mentioned above and another one she had on that screen where the abbreviated phrase says one thing and something spoken is different. 

She said that was how she was taught to prepare PowerPoints being a stand up trainer: not to put exactly what is spoken up on the screen but to "attempt to relate or correlate what is on the screen...since there would be no point of the narration and they can just read it"  which goes to my point that we shouldn't even be using bullet points in the first place but do pretty much what Steve suggested with his second post which is having various images showing up on the screen and having call outs to those images where the narration and imagery support each other not some gratuitous images and bulleted text. Doing that requires a whole different way of thinking and this contractor hasn't studied these principles. 

It's frustrating to have others create things like this and also myself be forced to create click and read bullet point e-documents rather than taking more time to do what Steve suggested. I am the director so I wanted to mention to her not to make a habit out of doing this phrasing and wanted to back it up with a principle.

 

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