Effects of type of multimedia strategy on learning of Chinese characters for non-native novices
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of multimedia strategies for instructional techniques and practice on non-native novices' Chinese character learning performance and cognitive load. Two types of multimedia instructional presentations - radical-highlighted and stroke-pronunciation and two types of practice - visual cue and voice cue - were implemented. Participants were 81 non-native novices randomly assigned to one of the four experimental groups, namely radical-highlighted visual-cue, radical-highlighted voice-cue, stroke-pronunciation visual-cue and stroke-pronunciation voice-cue. An Internet-based e-learning course on the basis of Chinese characters was implemented and delivered as experimental instruction using a Moodie platform. The results show that, for non-native novices, the stroke-pronunciation (SP) strategy of showing strokes with pronunciations is better than the radical-highlighted (RH) strategy, enabling the novices to achieve better performance in identifying Chinese radicals. The significant two-way interactions suggest that (1) the SP presentation should be delivered with the voice-cue (VoC) practice to elicit better performance in writing and in identifying characters and strokes, and (2) the RH presentation should be delivered with visual-cue (ViC) practice to elicit better performance in character writing. Furthermore, participants showed similar levels of perceived cognitive load toward the stroke-based task and the radical-based task. However, when the SP presentation was delivered with the VoC practice, participants revealed lower perceived cognitive load toward the writing task. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
applications in subject areas improving classroom teaching multimedia/hypermedia systems pedagogical issues