INDIVIDUAL AND COOPERATIVE LEARNING WITH INTERACTIVE ANIMATED PICTURES

Computer-based learning environments provide the possibility to presen t interactive animated pictures, which can be manipulated for active e xploratory learning and which allow to display the dynamic behavior of a complex subject matter. Due to the large range of possibilities of exploratory interaction, such learning environments seem to be well su ited for cooperative learning, where different learners analyse a subj ect matter from different perspectives. Knowledge acquisition from int eractive animated pictures was compared with knowledge acquisition fro m static pictures in two empirical studies under the conditions of ind ividual learning (Study I) and of cooperative learning (Study II). In Study I, learning with interactive animated pictures resulted in a bet ter encoding of detail information, but did not have positive effects on performance in mental simulation tasks. In Study II, learning with interactive animated pictures resulted both in lower encoding of detai l information and poorer results in mental simulations. These findings and the analysis of discourse protocols of the co-operation suggest t hat exploratory learning with interactive animated pictures is associa ted with extraneous cognitive load, which can be further increased by the co-ordination demands of co-operative learning. Although animated pictures provide external support for mental simulations, they seem to be not generally beneficial for learning, as they can prevent individ uals from performing relevant cognitive processes.