Effects of a Personalized Museum Guide on Germane Cognitive Load

• In Event: 34.080 - Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: 34.080-2 - Principles of Cognition and Multimedia Design

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of incorporating personalized learning into a wearable or audio museum guide based on students’ learning styles (visual or verbal). Personalized learning was achieved by matching participants’ learning styles with either a wearable or an audio guide. The participants consisted of 79 university students, divided into four groups: audio guide-visual, audio guide-verbal, wearable guide-visual, and wearable guide-verbal. This study found that personalized learning helps reduce students’ intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load while increasing their germane cognitive load. It is suggested that museum educators refer to our classification of learning styles, provide visitors with personalized devices, and incorporate wearable guiding devices with the museum learning process in order to enhance visitors’ learning experience.

Authors

• Jerry Chih-Yuan Sun, National Chiao Tung University

• Shih-Jou Yu, National Chiao Tung University