ANIMATION IN COMPUTER-BASED INSTRUCTION

Although the use of animated visuals is both common and popular among Cbi designers, the theoretical and empirical foundations for their use have not been firmly established. Animated visuals represent a subset of instructional visuals; for this reason, general conclusions from research on static visuals are thought to extend to animated visuals. The extent to which animated visual research represents elaborations or departures from static visual research is questioned, however. The purpose of this paper is to review current empirical evidence of the effectiveness of animated visuals in instruction. Tentative design recommendations resulting from this review are presented. Current applications of computer animations in instruction are discussed and a brief summary of static visuals research is also presented. © 1990 Association for Educational Communications and Technology.