Table of Contents

Redundancy Principle

Theory

Redundancy principle refers to the fact that capacity of both human information channels can unnecessarily be overloaded by redundant information presented in multiple forms or unnecessary elaborations thereby negatively affecting learning process.1)

Practice

The redundancy principle refers for example to a learning material in which a text is presented near a picture to explain it, but similar spoken text (carrying same information) is also included in the material. The related information should be complementary. The same (redundant) information presented to the learner through both information channels is unnecessarily wasting cognitive resources when they could be used to obtain more related useful information.

Research status

Although research has showed that redundant information generally hinders learning2)3), some research has also pointed that the negative redundancy effect does not occur if redundant information is short and respects spatial contiguity principles.4)

1)
Mayer, Richard E. The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
2)
For details see: Mayer, Richard E. The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
3)
Schmidt-Weigand, Florian, and Katharina Scheiter. The role of spatial descriptions in learning from multimedia. Computers in Human Behavior 27, no. 1: 22-28. January 2011.
4)
Mayer, Richard E., and Cheryl I. Johnson. Revising the Redundancy Principle in Multimedia Learning. Journal of Educational Psychology 100, no. 2: 380-386. May 2008.