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... strategies, cognitive and social processes. In the current study, we sought to understand some of these interactions by studying the impact of two different media (video and text) on learners within varied story types (which embody ideas of different content domains and instructional strategies). We studied how equivalent text and video versions of four different stories impacted participants': interest/engagement, affect/mood, emotional engagement, recall of information, ability to summarize main points, judgments of story quality, and opinions about content matter. Results indicate that while video does not provide an advantage over text on measures of immediate information recall, on other measures of the study there is a more complex interaction between media format, story type, and video style. Explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.
The shift toward newer, digital forms of expression that replace print have consequences for how we think about teaching and researching literacy (Bruce, 1997; Leu, 2000; Reinking, 1998). However, evaluating the effectiveness of video as an instructional medium has proven to be complicated and somewhat contentious (e.g., see the recent debate by Clark [1994a, 1994b] and Kozma [1994]). In his review of early studies comparing video with other methods of instruction, Clark (1983) concluded that "media do not influence learning under any conditions ... [they] are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers the groceries causes changes in our nutrition" (p. 445), a conclusion reached by researchers, although somewhat less dramatically in earlier reviews of the literature (Levie & Dickie, 1973; Mielke, 1968; Schramm, 1977).
Researchers who disagree with Clark have argued that media benefits are not simple to identify, and that media effects interact with other educational factors (e.g., contexts, goals, social processes, etc.) in complicated ways. In this view, media have affordances--perceived and actual properties (Gibson, 1979; Norman, 1990) that define relationships between media formats and the intentions, perceptions, and capabilities of learners (Weiser & Brown, 1995). Kozma (1991, 1994), for example argued for this contextual stance by considering media to have affordances that " ... interact with cognitive and social processes" (p. 11). Salomon (1979) provided the rationale for how media interact with cognitive processes, arguing that the resulting mental activity differs because the underlying symbol systems differ in the way "they structure and convey contents" (p. xviii; xix). Thus, learning in a particular medium is dependent upon navigating the differing symbol system of that medium.
This view is supported by Paivio's (1990, p. 55) dual coding theory which posits two separate symbolic systems: one system is attuned to verbal information, including auditory processing and language, while the other system is attuned to visual and spatial processing. Even though these systems are functionally and structurally different, they are interconnected in a way that an event in one system can initiate activity in the other. Dual coding theory further suggests that there is little competition for resources when presenting visual and auditory information together, so that multimedia representations have important educational affordances. From this perspective, video, with its visual and verbal codes, might be a more effective and powerful medium for delivery of instructional material than a single representation of just pictorial or verbal code.
The present study is concerned with further exploring the complexity of interactions surrounding the role of media and learning. In particular, this study focuses on the affordances of text and video interacting with different types of content and story-types (e.g., human-interest story vs. informative story vs. artistic work vs. scholarly lecture). Story type is a profitable starting point for investigation because of the vast body of research suggesting that story grammars play a large role in the processing, organizing, and recalling of information (see for example Kintsch & van Dijk, 1975; Mandler, 1984).
Historically, studies investigating the role of media in learning have been problematic (as Clark [1983] pointed out). Although there have been many studies that have tried to address the learning benefits of media and multimedia, very few of these studies have focused on comparing media in which information content, instructional strategies, and other aspects of learning have been held constant. The results that do exist, however, shed some interesting light on how visual media may impact learners, and how that impact may differ depending on the type of story that is being portrayed.
For example, a study by Cowen (1984), concluded that video may have some important affordances for representing character-driven stories. Cowen went to great lengths to establish the equivalence of text and video versions of short vignettes depicting a main character, named Jim, as very introverted or extroverted as he encountered everyday situations (e.g., meeting someone at a restaurant). Results showed that the video version led to better recall of story details but not about Jim's personality. In a second experiment, text information was followed by conflicting video information (and vice-versa), so that, for example, a video of one story depicting Jim as an extrovert was followed by a text of another story depicting Jim as an introvert. Results indicated that participants were more influenced by the video version in their recall and judgment of Jim's character, regardless of the order in which they were presented. Similar results were obtained in a study by Baggett (1979) for a dialogueless movie (The Red Balloon), in which video afforded better recall of information than text seven days later, but not immediately following the story. Similarly, Roberts, Cowen, and McDonald (1996) contrasted film and text versions of the short story, Soap-Box Derby. They found that participants who experienced the film version of the story displayed better recall of positive and negative emotional states compared with those who experienced only the text versions of the story. Film also led to better recall of secondary information, although not of primary information. There were no differences between the film and text conditions in their perceptions of the characters. In sum, these studies support the idea that for character-driven stories, participants find video to be better suited for portraying character portraits (e.g., emotional states) that are more likely to be recalled.
Studies based upon news stories show a different finding, usually in favor of a learning or recall benefit for text over video (DeFleur, Davenport, Cronin, & DeFleur, 1992; Robinson & Davis, 1990), or possibly no difference between text and video in learning or recall (Neuman, Just, & Crigler, 1992). However, Brosius (1989) and Newhagen and Reeves (1992) showed that how images are used in conjunction with the underlying message could greatly influence learning and recall, instead of simply applying a talking head approach (Edwardson, Kent, Engstrom, & Hoffman, 1992). Cooper (2000) found that using video for news stories makes viewers more likely to assign credit or blame to characters in the story, find the stories more personally relevant and important, and generally find the news stories more newsworthy.
These studies suggest a slightly modified version of Clark's controversial statement that there are no educational benefits from media in general. Instead, understanding the impact of video or other visual media upon learners will take an accounting of how the representational affordances of different media interact with other complex features of the learning environment, including learner characteristics, content domains, pedagogical strategies, and cognitive and social processes. In the current study, we sought to understand some of these interactions by studying the impact of two different media (video and text) on learners within varied story types (which embody ideas of different content domains and instructional strategies). In particular, we studied the impacts of these two media upon learners as they interacted with...
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