Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of context-dependency of seductive details on recall and transfer in multimedia learning environments. Seductive details were interesting yet irrelevant sentences in the instructional text. Two experiments were conducted. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to identify context-dependent and context-independent seductive details in the narration of a lightning animation. Participants (n=67) were randomly assigned to context-dependent and context-independent seductive details groups. They assigned interestingness scores to the 28 sentences which were irrelevant to the lightning formation. The results of Experiment 1 identified six context-dependent and seven context-independent seductive details in the narration of the lightning formation. The purpose of Experiment 2 was to investigate the effects of context-dependency of seductive details on recall and transfer in multimedia learning environments. Randomly assigned participants (n=184) in four experimental groups performed recall and transfer tasks after watching the lightning animation. 2x2 ANOVAs and contrast analyses were conducted to determine the effects of context-dependency of seductive details on recall and transfer. The results indicated that there was no significant effect of context-dependency of seductive details on recall or transfer. The findings are discussed and directions for future research are suggested.

Citation

Ozdemir, D. & Doolittle, P. (2015). Revisiting the Seductive Details Effect in Multimedia Learning: Context-dependency of Seductive Details. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 24(2), 101-119. Waynesville, NC USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 18, 2022 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/43725/.

© 2015 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

• Instructional Materials
• Learning Objects
• Multimedia