E-Learning and the Science of Instruction By Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer Pfeiffer, A Wiley Imprint 2003 322 pp. hardcover

Drs. Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer have created an elearning niche, that of multimedia design as guided by behaviorist and cognitive research.

For many, multimedia evokes splashy effects and the best that digital technology can offer. Yet, when multimedia is applied for learning purposes, a more learning-grounded approach is effective. Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer's E-learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning have created a handy topic-based text for multimedia education design.

Clark and Mayer debunk the central myth of the medium causing the learning; rather, instructional methods do. These authors offer six core principles for multimedia design for educational purposes: the multimedia principle; contiguity principle; modality principle; redundancy principle; coherence principle, and the personalization principle (Clark and Mayer, 2003, pp. 3 - 5).

Graphics may contribute to learner sense-making of the curricular materials if they are relevant and informative. Related text and graphics should be placed close together instead of in different regions of a course site. (This may not always be so easy to do given the affordances of any particular LMS.) Audio narration tends to be preferable to onscreen text delivery, in order to maximize the audiovisual channels of learning.

More is not always better; for example, sound should not be enhanced with onscreen text necessarily - or the learners' cognitive channels may be overloaded. All embellishments to learning should be eliminated. These would include entertaining stories, background music, and other non-instructional elements.

The language used in the learning should be personalized and colloquial, even with the use of the second person point-of-view "you". Animated pedagogical agents may be helpful if they focus learner attention, but the agents need to be there for instructional purposes, not entertainment ones.

These authors use solid course building examples (of fairly simplistic lessons) from the real world.

These authors have read through a large body of multimedia research for applied theories and conducted their own research as well for this text. This text itself is well designed, which enhances the text's clarity.

E-learning and the Science of Instruction should be a regular resource for instructional designers and instructors who care to do their own multimedia builds.

Clark, R.C. and Mayer, R.E. (2003). E-learning and the science of instruction. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, A Wiley Imprint.