The Self-Explanation Principle in Multimedia Learning
Abstract
Learning in multimedia environments is hard because it requires learners to actively comprehend and integrate information across diverse sources and modalities. Self-explanation is an effective learning strategy that helps learners develop deep understanding of complex phenomena and could be used to support learning from multimedia. Researchers have established the benefits of self-explaining across many domains for a range of ages and learning contexts (including multimedia situations). This research demonstrates that some learners are natural self-explainers and also indicates that learners can be trained to self-explain. However, even when trained, there remain large individual differences in effective self-explaining. Additional support, which may be afforded by multimedia environments, appears to be needed for engaging some learners in this activity. This chapter reviews related literature and explores the relationship between multimedia learning and self-explaining. Introduction Multimedia learning environments have the potential to substantially improve student learning compared to single media (Mayer & Moreno, 2002; Najjar, 1996). Controlled studies that compare multimedia (e.g, combinations of text and illustrations or narration and animation) with single media resources have found that students learn better from a combination of media, provided that the materials are well-designed (Goldman, 2003; Mayer, 1993; Mayer & Anderson, 1991; Mayer & Gallini, 1990; Mayer, Hei…
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Along with worked examples, self-explanation prompts help students foster greater understanding and improve students' problem solving performance.
“A review of self-explanation shows that along with WEs, self-explanation prompts help students foster greater understanding [16] and improves students' problem solving performance [12].”
From Exploring the Impact of Worked Examples in a Novice Programming Environment (2019) · cites this paper as [16]
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- Authors
- Roy, M., & Chi, M. T. H.
- Affiliations
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- ORCID
- Roy, Marguerite
- Venue
- The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2005-08-15
- Pages
- 271-286
- OpenAlex
- W3010383937
- Cited by
- 219
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 11.33
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive Learning
- Keywords
- self-explanation, multimedia learning, individual differences, deep understanding, student engagement, multimodal data integration, cognitive load
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