Effect of animation in enhancing descriptive and procedural texts in a multimedia learning environment

This article reports the third and final phase of a research project to investigate the role of animation in enhancing recall and comprehension of text by grade 6 primary school students. This phase had three objectives: To determine whether a complex descriptive text is enhanced by animation so long as the animation exhibits close semantic links with the text; to explore the importance of captions in linking an animation with a text so as to increase comprehension of that text; and to investigate the relationship between students' spatial skills and their ability to recall and comprehend a text enhanced with still images and animation. A descriptive text on the structure and functions of the heart from Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia was linked to a still image and two animation sequences developed by the research team and which were both more extensive and more completely integrated semantically with the text than in the original Compton's version. Four presentation conditions were produced: Text; text and still image; text, still image, and animations; and text, still image, animations, and captions. Students were tested for spatial ability and divided into two groups: Low and high spatial ability. Their comprehension was tested using three tasks: Written recall, multiple choice questions, and problem‐solving. Animation improved significantly only the problem‐solving task, but this was the measure which involved the highest level of cognitive effort. Students with high spatial ability in general performed better than students with low spatial ability regardless of presentation condition, and in the case of propositional and thematic recall, this was significant. The addition of captions to the animation sequences had no significant effect but this may be because the sequences also included labels which could have obviated the need for captions. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.