Psychological Reasons for the Segmenting Principle
Suppose that, as part of an e-course, the learner clicked on an entry for
“ lightning” from a multimedia encyclopedia and then watched a 2.5- minute
narrated animation explaining lightning formation—as shown in Figure 10.2.
The fi gure shows some of the frames in the animation along with the complete
spoken script indicted in quotation marks at the bottom of each frame.
As you can see, the lesson is complex—with many interacting elements—and
is presented at a fairly rapid pace. If a learner misses one point, such as the
idea that a cloud rises to the point that the top is above the freezing level and
the bottom is below, the entire causal chain will no longer make sense. If a
learner is unfamiliar with the material, he or she may need time to consolidate
what was just presented. In short, when an unfamiliar learner receives a continuous
presentation containing a lot of interrelated concepts, the likely result
is that the cognitive system becomes overloaded—too much essential processing
is required. In short, the learner does not have suffi cient cognitive capacity
to engage in the essential processing required to understand the material.