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 t o investigate the role of animation in enhancing recall and comprehens ion of text by grade 6 primary school students. This phase had three o bjectives: To determine whether a complex descriptive text is enhanced by animation so long as the animation exhibits close semantic links w ith the text; to explore the importance of captions in linking an anim ation with a text so as to increase comprehension of that text; and to investigate the relationship between students' spatial skills and the ir ability to recall and comprehend a text enhanced with still images and animation. A descriptive text on the structure and functions of th e heart from Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia was linked to a still i mage and two animation sequences developed by the research team and wh ich were both more extensive and more completely integrated semantical ly with the text than in the original Compton's version. Four presenta tion conditions were produced: Text; text and still image; text, still image, and animations; and text, still image, animations, and caption s. Students were tested for spatial ability and divided into two group s: Low and high spatial ability. Their comprehension was tested using three tasks: Written recall, multiple choice questions, and problem-so lving. Animation improved significantly only the problem-solving task, but this was the measure which involved the highest level of cognitiv e effort. Students with high spatial ability in general performed bett er than students with low spatial ability regardless of presentation c ondition, and in the case of propositional and thematic recall, this w as significant, The addition of captions to the animation sequences ha d no significant effect but this may be because the sequences also inc luded labels which could have obviated the need for captions.