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Mareike Florax

[Person] [Project]

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Mareike Florax, Dipl. Psych.

Short Vita

1976:

Born in Lüdenscheid (Germany).

1995-2002:

Study of Psychology at the University of Münster (Germany).

2002:

Graduation in Psychology at the University of Münster (Germany). Thesis: "Typisieren oder Verbalisieren: Sind Lernprozesse beim Erstellen von Hypertexten eine Konsequenz der Typisierung von Links oder der Verbalisierung kognitiver Prozesse?".

Since June 2003:

PhD student of the VGK.

Contact

Phone: ++49 (0)761 / 682-910
FAX: --49 (0)761 / 682-922
email: florax@ph-freiburg.de
WWW: My homepage

University of Education
Institute of Educations Science I
Learning Technology
Kunzenweg 21
D-79117 Freiburg (Germany)

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Ph.D. Project

Topic: The Effect of the Active Integration of Texts and Visualisations on Learning

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. R. Ploetzner

Start of the Ph.D. project: June 2003

Summary

Learning with new media often means to be confronted with material that contains not only texts but also visualisations. If learners want to process the presented material successfully they need to integrate the different sources of information into a coherent mental model (Mayer, 2001).
Basically, there are two ways to organize information on the screen: 1. Visualisations and texts can be separated spatially, e.g. the visualisations can be placed under the text or on the other side of the screen. This way of organisation is named split-source format. 2. The text can be segmented and then integrated into the visualisation which results in a so called integrated format.
When working with complementary material, it is a well estabished effect that learning with integrated material leads to better learning outcomes than working with material that is separated spatially (split attention effect, e.g. Mayer, 2001; Chandler and Sweller, 1991).

Making students integrate texts and visualisations on their own could be another and even more successful strategy to initiate the crucial cognitive processes that lead to deeper understanding. Bodemer, Plötzner, Feuerlein and Spada (in press) investigated the effect of the integration of texts and visualisations on learning. They compared the knowledge of students, who actively constructed an integrated format with the knowledge of students who learned with material that was presented in an integrated form. The results showed that the "active integration" groups outperformed the other group and therefore supported the hypothesis that the activity of integrating texts and visualisations has the potential to improve learning.

The current set of studies is concerned with the specification of conditions under which the active integration of texts and visualisations promotes meaningful learning. The first study will analyse the effects of systematically varying the complexity of the learning material. The second experiment will deal with the influence of pre-knowledge on learning. The third study is designed to answer the question whether the split attention effect also occurs when the learning material consists of realistic pictures.

References

Bodemer, D., Plötzner, P., Feuerlein, I. & Spada, H. (in press). The Active Integration of Information During Learning with Dynamic and Interactive Visualisations. Learning and Instruction.

Chandler, P. & Sweller, J. (1991). Cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 8(4), 293-332

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia Learning. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

[Top of Page] [Person] [Project] Mareike Florax

Last update: 12 Sep 2003, Erik Ründal
URL: www.vgk.de/projects/florax/index.html