The spatial contiguity principle is that people learn and perform better when corresponding printed text and graphics are placed near rather than far from each other on the screen or page. This is a well-established design principle in multimedia learning. However, there is insufficient research to establish the appropriate distance between text…

In three studies, eye movements of participants were recorded while they viewed a single-slide multimedia presentation about how car brakes work. Some of the participants saw an integrated presentation in which each segment of words was presented near its corresponding area of the diagram (integrated group, Experiments 1 and 3) or an integrated…

A "science of e-learning" involves the scientific investigation of how people learn in electronic learning environments. Three elements of a science of e-learning are: a) "evidence"--a base of replicated findings from rigorous and appropriate research studies; b) "theory"--a research-based theory of how people learn in electronic learning…