Collaborative Research: Multimedia learning principles for design-it-yourself online instruction of GIS concepts

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This project will contribute to the development and creation of engaged learning environments in which students will solve geography problems by using a geographic information system (GIS), a computer software system used to capture, store, manipulate and analyze location-based information. The project will also provide instructors with 'design-it-yourself' guidance for developing online instructional materials that engage students in learning before they enter the classroom. The project will test evidence-based principles of multimedia learning theory and will extend this theory by testing the applications of these principles to a lesson that aims to improve 'spatial thinking' skills, the ability to visualize objects in three dimensions and to draw conclusions about those objects with limited information. By focusing on instructional methods that can be implemented prior to student interaction with a GIS, this project will contribute to the development and creation of engaged learning environments in geography education. Using evidence-based design principles for lessons on solving problems with a GIS can help retain early-stage students in introductory STEM courses. The resulting improvements in instructional design of college STEM courses will have a particularly positive impact on students who need support in developing spatial thinking skills in introductory courses. A series of randomized controlled experiments will be employed to examine how specific instructional features in the way the lessons are presented affect learning outcomes, such as, whether the learner reads or listens to verbal explanations, whether the presentation is continuous or self-paced, whether words and pictures appear drawn by hand or by computer, and whether pictures appear before or coincide with a verbal explanation. The project will also test for spatial ability and examine how individual differences in a learner's spatial abilities affect the impact of these instructional features. A series of experiments will test hypotheses from multimedia learning theory and measure learning outcomes through transfer and retention tests. A preliminary intervention study to investigate whether incorporating well-designed online lessons in an introductory GIS class improves student engagement and learning outcomes will also be conducted. The final products will be (i) a set of evidence-based principles regarding how to design online GIS lessons, and (ii) a model application in a blended learning classroom. This project will also provide empirical evidence evaluating the generalizability of multimedia learning theory to the understudied domain of college education in spatial thinking with computer software systems. The project will systematically investigate how evidence-based methods of presenting words and pictures interact with spatial abilities to affect learning outcomes.