Learning with Animation

Wolfgang Schnotz is a full Professor of General and Educational Psychology at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany where he is the head of the Multimedia Research Group and the head of the Graduate School on Teaching Processes. He was formerly a professor at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena in Germany and a lecturer at the University of Vienna in Austria. Dr Schnotz was the chief editor of the International Journal of Learning and Instruction, was a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, and acted as the chair of the Division of Educational Psychology. He gave keynote addresses at numerous international conferences in the field of educational psychology and research on learning media. He has published extensively in European and international psychology journals. Dr Schnotz is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychology Association, the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, the European Society for Cognitive Psychology, the German Association of Psychology, the Association for Cognitive Science, the International Association of Applied Technology, and the Society for Text and Discourse. Richard Lowe is Professor of Learning Technologies at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Following undergraduate studies in chemistry and education, he completed a Ph.D. in educational psychology at Murdoch University. As a result of his work in industry, education, and textbook publication, he developed an interest in factors influencing the effectiveness of explanatory graphics. From an early focus on the comprehension of static graphics, his research has extended in recent years to include investigations of the educational effectiveness of animated and interactive graphics. In addition to his research, he continues to work as a practicing instructional designer for industry and government organizations that rely on complex and dynamic graphic information displays for their operations. He is currently Associate Editor for the international journal Educational Research Review.

'The international authors clarify and integrate the major themes of current research into learning with animation, exploring requirements for the principled design of learning resources.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

• Preface Richard Lowe and Wolfgang Schnotz; Part I. Information Search and Processing: 1. Effects of knowledge and spatial ability on learning from animation Mary Hegarty and Sarah Kriz; 2. Research-based principles for learning with animation Richard Mayer; 3. Learning from animation: where to look, when to look Richard Lowe; Part II. Individual Differences and Strategies: 4. Successful and less successful use of dynamic visualizations in instructional texts Rolf Ploetzner, Daniel Bodemer and Sieglinde Neudert; 5. Functions of animation in comprehension and learning Wolfgang Schnotz and Thorsten Rasch; 6. Animations of thought: interactivity in the teachable agent paradigm Daniel L. Schwartz, Kristen P. Blair, Gautam Biswas, Krittaya Leelawong and Joan Davis; 7. Making sense of animation: how do children explore multimedia instruction? Mireille Bétrancourt and Alain Chassot; 8. Commentary on Parts I and II John R. Kirby; Part III. Interactivity and Learning: 9. Animated pedagogical agents: how do they help students construct knowledge from interactive multimedia games? Roxana Moreno; 10. Young learners' control of technical animations Jean-Michel Boucheix; 11. Turning the tables: investigating characteristics and efficacy of student-authored animations and multimedia N. Hari Narayanan and Theresa Hübscher-Younger; Part IV. Instructional Issues: 12. Enriching animations Barbara Tversky, Julie Heiser, Rachel Mackenzie, Sandra Lozano and Julie Morrison; 13. A comparison of how animation has been used to support formal, informal, and playful learning Yvonne Rogers; 14. A unified view of learning from animated and static graphics Wolfgang Schnotz and Richard Lowe; 15. Commentary on Parts III and IV Susan R. Goldman.