Tom Boyle explains how the usefulness of multimedia will enhance learning, education and teaching only if the essentials of good design are understood by those making products for this growing market.

Advances in computer graphic technologies have inspired new efforts to understand the potential of multimedia instruction as a means of promoting human learning. In Multimedia Learning, Third Edition, Richard E. Mayer takes an evidence-based approach to improving education using well-designed multimedia instruction. He reviews 15 principles of multimedia instructional design that are based on more than 200 experimental research studies and grounded in a cognitive theory of how people learn from words and graphics. The result is the latest instalment of what Mayer calls the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, a theory introduced in previous editions of Multimedia Learning and in The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, Second Edition. This edition provides an up-to-date and systematic summary of research studies on multimedia learning, supplemented with complementary evidence from around the globe. It is well-suited to graduate and undergraduate courses in psychology, education, computer science, communication, instructional design, and game design.

For hundreds of years verbal messages - such as lectures and printed lessons - have been the primary means of explaining ideas to learners. In Multimedia Learning Richard Mayer explores ways of going beyond the purely verbal by combining words and pictures for effective teaching. Multimedia encyclopedias have become the latest addition to students reference tools, and the world wide web is full of messages that combine words and pictures. Do these forms of presentation help learners? If so, what is the best way to design multimedia messages for optimal learning? Drawing upon 10 years of research, the author provides seven principles for the design of multimedia messages and a cognitive theory of multimedia learning. In short, this book summarizes research aimed at realizing the promise of multimedia learning - that is, the potential of using words and pictures together to promote human understanding.