Multimodal learning: How task types affect learning of students with reading difficulties

Purpose: The prevalence of multimedia technology in the current educational settings has increased the need for investigating how individual differences such as reading difficulties moderate multimedia learning. Given that instructional designs closely interact with task characteristics and requirements, we aimed to explore how students with reading difficulties perform various types of learning tasks within the context of multimedia instruction.Methods: College students with and without reading difficulties viewed a multimedia lesson on stem cell research while their eye movements were recorded. After viewing the multimedia slides, students completed four tasks pertaining to the content provided in the lesson.Results: Students with reading difficulties performed poorer than their peers on the procedural task while the groups’ performance did not differ on definitional, infographic, and argumentative tasks. Further, there was no difference in the eye fixation counts and gaze duration between the two groups.Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of an awareness that the types of tasks used to assess students’ knowledge may impact their performance. Information of this nature may be useful in determining optimal learning experiences for students with learning difficulties.