Whiteboard animation and PowerPoint multimedia instruction: A comparative study of instructional effectiveness on cognitive load and retention.

Digital instructional multimedia tools are evolving quickly and provide learners with alternative learning experiences.
While there is plenty of research on instructional animations, research concerning the learning effectiveness of whiteboard animation instructional multimedia presentations is rare.

This study compares the learning effectiveness using two different styles of multimedia presentation. A total of 95 final year undergraduate Business and Finance students took part in this experiment.

Divided into two groups (called Oak & Maple), the first group (Oak) was shown a 6-minute video using PowerPoint slides and supporting narration. The second group (Maple) was also show a 6-minute video using a whiteboard animation and the same narration. Development of the whiteboard animation was guided using Mayer’s instructional design principles (Mayer, 2005).

Using self-rating questionnaires and retention tests, quantitative data were gathered and analysed. We found the whiteboard animation video has a more positive effect on retention when compared to the PowerPoint video.