Animation and Learning

Animation as A Learning Tool ?

Given that the university degree being studied is Education studies and Psychology, it is important to discuss and understand how this module regarding animation can impact on the learner in either an academic sense or learning in general; thus the following post will draw on various articles to critically evaluate how animation can influence learning and whether it makes an invaluable contribution to engaging collaborative learning.

Animations are used for many purposes throughout a whole array of foci; Ainsworth (2008) postulates how animations are often employed when there is a need to illustrate difficult phenomena that is not clearly portrayed in the real world to learners; for example, the undertaking of atoms in a specific gas, or the fluctuating actions of the continents. Further, theoretical representations can also be used to signify occurrences that are not intrinsically visual, such as a computer algorithm, the weather in Australia, or periods in a mathematical explanation. A progressively collective use of animation however is in animated agents, where realistic characters are animated to incorporate gestures and expression (Ainsworth, 2008).

Here are some examples of animations described above:

Animated Gas Atoms 

Animated action of regions 

Animated Characters - Facial Expressions 

Animated Weather Map 

Agents 

According to Mayer and Moreno (2002), Multimedia environments are presenting new and potential ideas for improving the way in which people learn in various ways; this concept is being largely acknowledged among various researchers and academics. Within such environments, there appears to be an increased reliance on verbal material as well as in a pictorial form, photos or illustrations (Lowe 2003; Mayer and Moreno 2002), together with an increased preference for graphics and animated educational resources.

One of the key suggestions put forward in the literature as to why animations are now being considered as educational tools is that animation can benefit learners in comprehending complex ideas more easily. Despite this however, the reasons that are cited in the literature for this advancement tend to differ considerably; some scholars propose that animations can help learning as they are motivating and maintain the learners attention, with others stating that there are certain computational elements of animations that correspond with the cognitive demands of a learning task (Tversky et al., 2002).

Furthermore, Chan and Black (2005) conclude that a universal statement seems to be that animation can advantage learners as they deliver several instructional functions, such as, enticing and leading attention, indicating field knowledge about movement, and clarifying complex knowledge phenomena. Much of these conclusions have eluded from various studies relating to cognition as this tends to be at the heart of many arguments analysing animation and learning.

In a paper, Chan and Black (2005) for instance proposed a format-support hypothesis to explain how the presentation of animation can aid the learner. Based on the working memory, the hypothesis states that a suitable balance between presentation format and what learners need, to build an understanding of the phenomenon, will encourage understanding and learning. The nearer the balance between the presentation format (e.g. animation) and the specific phenomenon, the better the format will aid the learners in increasing robust mental models of the subject matter. In sum, the value of a presentation format is correlated with the amount to which it supplements the learners’ cognitive comprehension processes (Chan and black, 2005).

Furthermore, Mayer and Moreno (2002) have produced various studies using cognitive theories to suggest that students acquire information more intensely from animation and narration than from narration alone. The theory stipulates three vital cognitive expectations for the role of animation in learning; first that there are two distinct paths for administering visual and verbal illustrations, secondly that each individual path can only dynamically process a partial amount of information at any one time and finally, significant learning results from learners choosing, categorising and assimilating innovative material with previous material in order to vigorously create their own knowledge. As a consequence, the theory foresees that narrated animations can be extremely efficient when illustrating material as they allow complex knowledge to be presented in ways that take full advantage of the narrow capacity of the cognitive system.

As an example, in two experiments by Mayer and Anderson, (1991) mechanically naïve college students were presented with an animation regarding the operation of a bicycle tire pump; a verbal depiction was given before or during the animation. The results demonstrated that those students who had been presented with the animation and coinciding narration outperformed those in the group who were presented with the narration before the animation when provided with post-experiment tests of creative problem solving about how the pump worked. Thus supporting the cognitive theory put forward that animation combined with narration might influence learning.

In contrast to the above, others have regarded animation with considerable suspicion and have advised learners to limit the use of animations (Ainsworth, 2008). Frequently, these studies have documented the exertions that learners may experience in managing animation or in employing suitable strategies; for example Lowe (2003) carried out a study investigating whether animation can provide learners with information that is either implicit or unavailable in static graphs such as weather maps. The findings from such study concluded that some useful information was extracted from the animation, however its potential for helping learners construct mental models is limited due to its narrow scope.

Lowe (2003) further explains that animations are often preferred throughout a broad diversity of fields as a process of presenting complex subjects to learners who have limited familiarity in that area. The conclusions drawn from their study however indicate that by simply offering a true animated representation of the to-be-learned material may not be adequate enough for learners to create the clear and complete knowledge structures, required to generate superior mental models of vigorous content. This argument runs contrary to existing educational practice, where the procedure of animation seems to be grounded upon a naive notion that animation is naturally superior to stationary presentation. The findings thus imply that if animations merely show processes exclusive of further instructional enhancement, educational potential may be compromised.

On the basis of these outcomes, Lowe (2003) argues that the possibility of animation as a device for learning is questionable to be completely comprehended unless the design of these demonstrations offer appropriate attention to helping learners extract the significant information required for that specific area of learning and its assimilation into current knowledge structures.

Given the extensive review of research in this area, it is recognised that this may carry complication to the question of “how do animations influence learning"; nevertheless it does direct a more satisfying way to begin to answer the question (Ainsworth, 2008).


Reference List 

Ainsworth, S. (2008) How do animations influence learning. In Robinson, D. H., & Schraw, G. (2008) Recent Innovations in Educational Technology that Facilitate Student Learning (p37-67). United states: Information age publishing Inc. 

Chan, M. & Black, J. (2005). When can animation improve learning? Some implications on human computer interaction and learning. In Kommers P & Richards G (2005) Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (p933-938). 

Lowe, R. K. (2003), ' Animation and learning: selective processing of information in dynamic graphics', Learning and Instruction, 13, pp.157-176. 

Mayer, R. E., & Anderson, R. B. (1991), 'Animations need narrations: An experimental test of a dual-coding hypothesis', American psychological Association, 83, 4, pp. 484-490. 

Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2002) 'Animation as an aid to multimedia learning', Educational Psychology Review, 14, 1, pp. 87-89. 

Tversky, B., Morrison, J. B., & Betrancourt, M. (2002), 'Animation: can it facilitate?' International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57, 4, pp. 247-262.