Principle of Media

There are many experts who derive principles on the use of multimedia in learning. Like the
principles presented by Mayer and Clark. The following is an explanation of these principles:
(1) Students can learn better than words and pictures rather than just words (Mayer, 2009:
93). What is meant by words is text printed on a user-read screen or narrated text that
the user hears through a speaker or headset. What is meant by images are static
illustrations such as images, diagrams, graphics, maps, photos, or dynamic images
such as animation and video (Ayres, 2015). Clark & Mayer (2011: 70) uses the term
multimedia presentation to refer to all presentations that contain words and images.
According to Mayer, when words and images are presented simultaneously, students
have the opportunity to construct verbal and pictorial mental models and build
relationships between them. Whereas if only the words are presented, students only
have a small chance to build small and small pictorial models as well as the
possibility to build relationships between verbal and pictorial mental models. (Clark
& Mayer, 2011).
(2) The principle of attachment is divided into two, namely the closeness of space or the
closeness of the printed word with the related images and the closeness of the time or
attachment of words that are narrated to the related images (Mayer, 2009: 141; Clark
& Mayer, 2011: 102). The principle of closeness of space states that students can learn
better when words are printed and related images are presented close together rather
than being served far apart. While the principle of attachment time states that students
can learn better if the words are narrated and related images (animation or video) are
presented at the same time (simultaneous) (Mayer, 2009).
The principle of closeness of space is when related words and images are close
together on a screen, so students do not have to use cognitive sources to visually look
for them on the screen. Students will be better able to capture and store them together
in working memory at the same time. As for the closeness of time, Mayer (2009: 141)
reasoned that when the narrative section and related animation sections are presented
at the same time, students are more likely to be able to form mental representations of
both in working memory at the same time. This allows students to build a mental
relationship between verbal representation and visual representation.
(3) The principle of modality states that students can learn better from animation and
narration (spoken words) than from animation and words printed on the screen
(Mayer, 2009: 197). Based on cognitive theory and research evidence, Clark & Mayer
(2011: 117) suggests to narrate text rather than presenting text printed on the screen
when images (static or moving) are the focus of words and when both are presented at
the same time. If the images and words are presented visually, then the visual channel
will suffer from overloading but the auditory canal is not utilized. If words are
presented auditoriously, they can be processed in the auditor channel, so that the
visual channel only processes Mayer images (2009: 197)
(4) The principle of coherence states that students can learn better if extra things are set
aside from multimedia offerings (Mayer, 2009: 167). The principle of coherence is
divided into three versions, namely student learning is disrupted if interesting but
irrelevant images are added (Mayer, 2009: 170; Clark & Mayer, 2011: 159), student
 learning is interrupted if sounds and music are interesting but irrelevant added (Mayer
, 2009: 181; Clark & Mayer, 2011: 153), and student learning will increase if
unneeded words are excluded from multimedia presentations (Mayer 2009: 188; Clark
& Mayer, 2011: 166). Usually an extra material always competes for cognitive
resources in working memory so that it can distract students from important material.
Extra things can also disrupt the process of structuring the material and can lead
students to organize the material on an inappropriate basis.
(5) The principle of redundancy states that students learn better than pictures and
narratives rather than from images, narratives, and text printed on the screen (Mayer,
2009: 215). The implication of this is the suggestion from Clark & Mayer (2011: 125)
not to add text printed on the screen to the image being narrated. Students will pay
more attention to the text printed on the screen than to the related image. When their
eyes focus on printed words, students cannot see the image being narrated. Also,
students try to compare printed texts with spoken narratives so that they burden the
cognitive process. Therefore, for images that are being narrated, there should be no
added text printed on the screen.
(6) The principle of personalization suggests that multimedia developers use
conversational styles in narratives rather than formal styles (Clark & Mayer, 2011:
182). The conversation style is achieved by using the language of the first person and
the second person and with a friendly human voice. Studies in the discourse process
show that humans work harder to understand material when they feel they are in a
conversation with a friend, rather than just receiving information. Expressing
information in a conversation style can be a way to prepare students' cognitive
processes. As stated by Clark & Mayer (2011: 184) that instruction that contains
social clues such as conversation style activates the feeling of social presence, namely
the feeling of being in a conversation with the author. This feeling of social presence
results in learners becoming involved in deeper cognitive processes during learning
by trying harder to understand what the author is saying, the results of which are
better learning outcomes.
(7) The principle of segmentation suggests breaking large subject matter into small
segments (Clark & Mayer, 2011: 207). When a learning material is complex, the
material needs to be made simple by dividing it into several manageable parts. when
students receive a continuous presentation and contain interconnected concepts, the
result is the cognitive system becomes overloaded, too much processing is needed.
Students do not have enough cognitive capacity to be involved in the essential
processing needed to understand the material. The solution to the problem above is to
divide the subject matter into manageable sections, for example by giving the
"Continue" button (Clark & Mayer, 2011).
(8) The pre-training principle suggests making sure students know the names and
characteristics of important concepts (Clark & Mayer, 2011: 212). Before students
learn the process or do the exercises in an interactive multimedia, students should be
given material important concepts related to the process that will be studied or the
exercises that will be done. For example, before students see a demonstration video
on how to create a database table, students need to know what tables, fields, and
primary keys are. Pre-training can help beginners manage the processing of complex
materials by reducing the amount of essential processing they do when the
presentation is presented. When students already know what a primary key is, they
 can allocate cognitive processes to build mental models of how the primary key plays
in designing a table. Thus, the reason for the principle of pre-training is that this
principle helps manage essential processing by students by distributing materials into
the pre-training section of the learning material.

Reference
Ayres, P. (2015). State-of-the-Art Research into Multimedia Learning: A Commentary on
Mayer’s Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29(4), 631–
636. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3142
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). Applying the Multimedia Principle: Use Words and
Graphics Rather Than Words Alone. In R. C. Clark & R. E. Mayer (Eds.), e‐Learning
and the Science of Instruction. https://doi.org/doi:10.1002/9781118255971.ch4