Clark Ruth C. - E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers

This is a book about what works in e-learning. Increasingly, organizations are turning to e-learning to save travel costs and instructional time. In fact e-learning in both synchronous and asynchronous formats is on the rise, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all training delivery of workforce learning. However, dollars saved are only an illusion if the quality of the training suffers.

Many books on the market offer useful advice for design and development of e-learning. Unlike these books, the answers we present are not based on opinion and fads; they are based on empirical research. Much of this new research is inaccessible to those producing or evaluating online learning because it has been distributed primarily within the academic research community. This book bridges the gap by summarizing research-based answers to questions that practitioners ask about effective e-learning.

The popularity of the previous editions of this book is testimony to consumer interest in evidence-based guidelines about how to best use visuals, text, audio, practice exercises, and examples in e-learning. In the fourth edition we have updated the previous edition by adding new research, guidelines, and examples. Based on Richard Mayers extensive research on serious games, we have a new chapter on the effects of games on learning. We also have a new chapter on engagement in e-learning that presents recent research on generative multimedia learning.

If you are a designer, developer, evaluator, or consumer of e-learning, you can use the guidelines in this book to ensure that your courseware meets human psychological learning requirements. In particular you can learn evidence-based ways to:

• Communicate your content with words and visuals
• Use audio to describe visuals
• Avoid overloading learners with extraneous media effects
• Optimize social presence in your courseware
• Apply new research on engagement to your e-learning products
• Design examples and practice exercises that build job-relevant skills
• Determine when and how to use networked collaborative activities
• Build thinking skills through evidence-based methods
• Apply recent evidence on serious games to your portfolio of multimedia products

Chapters 1 through 3 lay the foundation for the book by defining e-learning, describing how the methods used in e-learning can promote or defeat learning processes, and summarizing the basic concepts associated with evidence-based practice.

Chapters 4 through 10 summarize the multimedia principles developed over thirty years of research by Richard Mayer and his associates at the University of California. In these chapters you will read the guidelines, the evidence, and the psychology, as well as review examples of how to (1) best use visuals, text, and audio, (2) increase social presence in your lessons, and (3) segment and sequence content in e-learning.

Chapters 11 through 16 focus on evidence-based guidelines related to important instructional methods and approaches in e-learning, including use of examples, practice, and feedback, collaborative learning assignments, navigation tools, and techniques to build thinking skills.

Chapter 17 is new to this edition and summarizes the most recent research on the effects of serious games on learning. In this chapter you will see the evidence that answers three fundamental questions about games: (1) What features promote learning in games? (2) Do games affect basic cognitive aptitudes? and (3) Are games more effective than traditional instructional approaches?

Chapter 18 integrates all of the books guidelines into a comprehensive checklist and illustrates how they apply in concert to asynchronous and synchronous e-learning examples.

The books introduction gives you a summary of specific topics in each chapter.

Fourth Edition

Ruth Colvin Clark Richard E. Mayer

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Cover design: Wiley

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright 2016 by Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Clark, Ruth Colvin, author. | Mayer, Richard E., 1947- author.
Title: E-learning and the science of instruction : proven guidelines for
consumers and designers of multimedia learning / Ruth C. Clark, Richard E. Mayer.
Description: Fourth edition. | Hoboken : Wiley, 2016. | Revised edition of
the authors' E-learning and the science of instruction, 2011. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015037550 (print) | LCCN 2015045401 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119158660 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119158677 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119158684
(epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Business educationComputer-assisted instruction. | BISAC:
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Human Resources & Personnel Management.