Do Multiple Representations Need Explanations? The Role of Verbal Guidance and Individual Differences in Multimedia Mathematics Learning Roxana Moreno University of New Mexico Richard Dura ´n University of California, Santa Barbara Elementary school children, some of whom were nonnative speakers of English, learned to add and subtract integers in a discovery-based multimedia game either with or without verbal guidance in English or optionally in Spanish (Groups G—verbal guidance and No-G—no verbal guidance, respectively). Group G members chose to listen to verbal explanations in their first language and showed larger posttest scores than Group No-G. High-computer-experience students in Group G outperformed the rest of the students on training session scores and a transfer test. Longer latencies to respond to practice problems affected all learning measures positively. Results support the use of verbal guidance for discovery-based multimedia games and show that multimedia games may not be equally effective for all learners. What is the role of verbal guidance in promoting mathematics learning from a discovery-based multimedia game? Are there important individual differences for which a multimedia game helps some kinds of learners more than others? These are impor- tant questions both for research and for the application of research, to improve instruction and learning outcomes in learning mathe- matics with multimedia programs. Our first question is concerned with the issue of how one should design multimedia games to enhance student learning and focuses on the role of verbal guid- ance as an aid to meaning making. To answer this question, we examined the cognitive consequences of learning how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers within a discovery-based multimedia game either with or without verbal guidance. Our second question is concerned with the issue of how individual differences influence learning from interactive multimedia games. More specifically, we were interested in examining the role that students’ computer experience and latency to solve problems had when students were asked to learn from a discovery-based com- puter game that presented multiple representations (symbolic and visual) of the arithmetic procedure. The main goal of this study was to investigate if the benefits of guidance that had been documented in past research on discovery- based strategies in the classroom extended into the realm of multimedia learning. In our study, elementary students studied 16 addition and subtraction problems involving positive and negative numbers in each of four training sessions with two representations of the arithmetic procedure: a symbolic representation consisting of the number sentence (i.e., 2 --5 = ___) and a visual representation using a number line and a computer animation to show how the symbolic number sentence relates to a bunny’s movements along the number line. One group of students learned without verbal guidance and was presented with the symbolic and visual representations alone (Group No-G). Another group of students learned with identical symbolic and visual representations but was presented, additionally, with a verbal description (in English or optionally in Spanish) explaining how the symbols related to the bunny’s movements along the number line (Group G). We measured learning in three ways: pretest to posttest im- provement in the number of correct answers in solving 18 signed arithmetic problems, the pattern of improvement in the number of correct answers for 16 equivalent example problems across the four learning trials, and the transfer of the arithmetic procedure to solving word problems. By addressing the role of verbal guidance and individual differ- ences in learning with discovery-based multimedia, educational psychologists can develop a more robust scientific foundation for theories of multimedia learning and instruction and provide a stronger knowledge base for informing instructional practice of value to particular students. We begin this inquiry by describing in detail the discovery-based learning environments used in our study. Then, we explain the case for using multiple representations and discovery-based methods in multimedia learning. Finally, we present a cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) to help derive predictions of the effectiveness of our treatments for each one of the individual differences of interest. A Discovery-Based Multiple-Representation Environment Figure 1 shows selected frames from an example problem presented to students in Group No-G. First, students selected one of eight problems to solve from the problem menu (as shown in the first frame of Figure 1). Then, as shown in the second frame of Figure 1, students saw the problem presented in symbolic form (as 4 --5 =__) and a number line showing integers from -9 to 9, with a bunny standing at the 0 point. A simulated joystick con- This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant ROLE 0231774. We thank Victor Reyes, Maika O’Brien, and Sabrina Jensen, teachers at the Isla Vista Elementary School, Goleta, California, for kindly participating in the experiment. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Roxana Moreno, Educational Psychology Program, Simpson Hall 123, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, or to Richard Dura ´n, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. E-mail: moreno@unm.edu or duran@ucsb.education.edu Journal of Educational Psychology Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association 2004, Vol. 96, No. 3, 492–503 0022-0663/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.96.3.492 492 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.