RESEARCH ARTICLE Guided self-management of transient information in animations through pacing and sequencing strategies George Hatsidimitris • Slava Kalyuga Published online: 14 November 2012 Ó Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2012 Abstract Learning with instructional animations may overstretch limited working memory resources due to intense processing demands associated with transient informa- tion. The authors investigated whether explicit instructional advice coupled with a task- specific learner control mechanism (such as a timeline scrollbar) could facilitate the successful self-management of transient information. The effectiveness of a timeline scrollbar that allowed self-pacing and self-sequencing of animations was compared with computer-controlled animations. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a timeline scrollbar (with instructional advice on its strategic use) enhanced the retention of stroke sequences in writing Chinese characters. In Experiment 2, a timeline scrollbar was used in an integrated set of narrated animations dealing with complex scientific information. Retention and comprehension post-tests indicated that although a scrollbar accompanied by instructional advice in its use assisted novice learners, no such effect was found with participants who possessed higher levels of prior knowledge. The findings have implications for the for- mulation of criteria for the effective incorporation of learner control into the design of instructional animations. Keywords Cognitive load Á Animations Á Learner control Á Expertise reversal effect Á Transient information Introduction Instructional animations remain inherently problematic in that they require the learner to simultaneously retain past, present and upcoming frames of fleeting information to enable integration and encoding. As consecutive frames roll from one to another, visual G. Hatsidimitris (&) School of Physics, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia e-mail: georgeh@unsw.edu.au S. Kalyuga School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia e-mail: s.kalyuga@unsw.edu.au 123 Education Tech Research Dev (2013) 61:91–105 DOI 10.1007/s11423-012-9276-z