The effects of visual representation fidelity and self-explantion prompts on mental model formation and cognitive load in adaptive learning environment

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of different types of visual representation fidelity (progression visual fidelity and no progression visual fidelity) and self-explanation prompts (adaptive self-explanation prompts and fixed self-explanation prompts) on mental model formation (mental model by diagram test, general knowledge, knowledge inference) and cognitive load(extraneous load, intrinsic load, germane load). For this purpose, a total of 62 undergraduate students were selected to participate in the study. They were all enrolled either in Teaching Materials and Instructional Methods or Politics and Society courses at a women’s university in South Korea. The students were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups when they logged into the asynchronous e-learning environment. According to the findings, learners who had learned under the progression visual fidelity conditions had significantly higher scores than those who had no progression visual fidelity on the mental model by diagram test. In contrast to the mental model by diagram test, learners who were provided no progression visual fidelity gained significantly more general knowledge about the human heart and circulatory system than learners who were provided with progression visual fidelity. Finally, the strongest outcomes were produced on the knowledge inference test which utilized progression visual fidelity accompanied by adaptive fading self-explanation prompts. In terms of what the results reveal about extraneous load, learners who had received adaptive fading self-explanation prompts reported having invested less and perceived the knowledge as being less difficulty learn as opposed to the learners who were provided with fixed self-explanation prompts. The results regarding germane load showed that learners who received progression visual fidelity condition concentrated more during learning while those who received visual representations remained equally focused.