Proposing Effective Framework for Animation Based Learning Environment for Engineering Students

Computer animations have been used since a long time to improve comprehension and the learning outcome but the outcomes of the past empirical studies were not uniform. Some studies statistically proved the effectiveness of computer animations but other studies failed to produce evidences in favour of computer animations. There is need of a standard framework that can suggest what should be there in an effective computer animation based learning environment. The present research is proposing a standard framework that suggests under which conditions computer animations are effective, which combination of scaffolding is effective in such environments, does design principles matter while making animations and which design principles are the most effective. A meta-analysis was conducted to find out the effective conditions. An empirical study was conducted to find out effective combination of scaffolding and another empirical study was conducted to find out the effective design principles. The study discovered that computer animations are effective when offered to high prior knowledge students. The study also found that indirect support and adaptive fading is the best combination of scaffolding. Segmentation, cueing/signaling, prediction prompts and modality are proved as the effective design principles.