Multimedia Principle and Examples

The Multimedia principle incorporates both words and graphics into an e-learning instructional design. According to Mayer and Clark (2011), evidence has shown the outcomes and results to be greater than simply offering words alone. “By words, we mean printed text (that is, words printed on the screen that people read) or spoken text (that is, words presented as speech that people listen to through earphones or speakers). By graphics we mean static illustrations such as drawings, charts, graphs, maps, or photos, and dynamic graphics such as animation or video” (Clark & Mayer, 2011, p. 70). The coordination of words and pictures together should be a well-thought out component that is developed during the design phase. According to Clark and Mayer (2011), learners   are “likely to understand material when they can engage in active learning—that is, when they engage in relevant cognitive processing such as attending to the relevant material in the lesson, mentally organizing the material into a coherent cognitive representation, and mentally integrating the material with their existing knowledge” (p. 71). Multimedia presentations encourage the learning audience to process the information and develop relationships between the words and graphics. The multimedia principle encourages engagement and therefore is likely to produce greater outcomes. (Laura)