Gender Differences in Learning with Instructional Animations

Abstract

Research into instructional animations has produced inconsistent results. Some studies have found animations superior to static pictures, while others have found no differences, or even advantages in favour of statics. These mixed results have often puzzled researchers because animations have a greater flexibility than static pictures in depicting physical and temporal changes. Several factors have been proposed to explain the lack of a clear pattern, including poorly designed studies with a number of biases, and failure to consider moderating factors such as gender and spatial ability. However, one explanation on why animations can be ineffective is that, they are a cause of transient information, which requires extra working memory resources to process and therefore hinders learning. However, there is a special case for learning human movement tasks where animations do not create additional cognitive load because humans have evolved to learn about movement through observations. This thesis continues the research into comparing animations and statics using a human movement task (building Lego shapes). It also examines the impact of gender and spatial ability (and the relationship between the two) on learning from both animations and statics. Furthermore, some embodied cognition effects are investigated in the form of gesturing and observing hands manipulating the shapes. Four experiments were conducted with university students having an equal number of males and females, randomly assigned to the designated conditions. Participants were required to observe a Lego construction, and then rebuild it. Spatial ability was measured and statistically controlled in the analysis. Results (Experiments 1, 2 & 3) did not show any animation advantages; however, there was a consistent gender-presentation format interaction effect where females performed better after observing animations while males performed better with static pictures. Furthermore, in contrast to the gesturing research, gesturing was found to be impedimental to learning, as was the observation of hands (Experiment 4). Furthermore, the best predictors of male performance were objective measures of spatial ability, whereas for females self-rating measures were best. Overall it was found that gender plays a significant role in animation research as do a number of other moderating factors.