Principles of Accessible Multimedia Learning

Multimedia presentations have been shown to benefit learners; as a result, multiple theories have been advanced to guide the presentation design process. This opinion paper addresses the most widely used of these theories, Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML), advancing that CTML as well as cognitivism itself may work in opposition to the provision of accessible instruction. A review of literature finds Sweller’s decision to highlight threats to learners’ cognitive capacity for processing audio and visual stimuli to be a problematic choice that, in combination with the medical neuroscience lens used by learning scientists, engenders discrimination against students with disabilities. In response, this paper proposes a novel alternative cognitivism framework which positions cognition as driven by learners’ analysis of verbal and symbolic data, based on a return to Paivio’s depiction of cognition as based on the interpretation of verbal and symbolic signs. This alt cog approach is offered as an explanation for Mayer’s observation of boundary conditions for the redundancy principle, then used to recast multiple CTML theories as a set of principles for the design and development of instruction through accessible multimedia learning.