Page 33 - Producing a Video to Communicate a New Model of Coaching to GAA Coaches

the central challenge of that process as ‘how to encourage learners to engage in

appropriate cognitive processing during learning while not overloading the processing
capacity of the verbal or pictorial channel.’ Rossiter and Garcia (2010) put it another

way by asking whether the addition of a multimedia element enhances or distracts from

the story?

Mayer (2008) categorises three sets of principles relating to each of the cognitive
processing types and aimed at influencing intrinsic, germane and extraneous load. Here

I highlight certain principles in each category.

Principles for Reducing Extraneous Load and Incidental Processing include

Coherence (or Weeding), Signaling and Temporal Contiguity.

Coherence refers to the weeding out of extraneous material that may increase
incidental processing and reduce essential processing capacity. This material

may be auditory/verbal or visual/pictorial and is ‘not essential to building a
mental model of the to-be-learned system’ (Mayer 2008, p. 763). Rossiter and

Garcia (2010, p. 40) for example advocate that text should be used sparingly as

it ‘competes with aural information”.

Signaling, also referred to as ‘cueing’ by de Koning et al (2009), can be thought

of as drawing the attention of the learner to essential information by, for
example using on screen text or symbols to highlight key information. Research

on signaling and the use of symbols and graphics (de Koning et al, 2009, and
Ibrahim et al, 2012) advocates their benefit to directing learner attention,

reducing extraneous load, and optimising germane load by highlighting the
organisation of and connections within the information, and ultimately retaining

and transferring new knowledge from animations and video. Koumi’s

Pedagogic Video Design Principle of Signposting, relatedly aids in setting the
scene and providing information about what’s coming next in a presentation.

Temporal Contiguity refers to the synchronisation or simultaneous presentation

of auditory/verbal information with associated visual/pictorial information as
opposed to sequentially or successively presenting the information. Mayer

(2008, pp. 764-765) reports a ‘large effect’ on transfer of knowledge when

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