Article "Personalized Refutation Texts Best Stimulate Teachers' Conceptual Change About Multimedia Learning" published in Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.

The article, entitled "Personalized Refutation Texts Best Stimulate Teachers' Conceptual Change About Multimedia Learning," was published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. In the study reported in the article, the authors examined the effectiveness of digitally presented personalized reflection texts for learning with multimedia using a sample of 129 participating teachers.

(Aspiring) teachers often have misconceptions about learning with multimedia, which can be detrimental to the design of instruction and instructional materials. Accordingly, these misconceptions should be reduced and conceptual change should be encouraged.

"Learners learn best when learning materials are adapted to their learning type." This statement is disproven based on current knowledge and thus represents a misconception. Instead, learners learn best when learning materials are adapted to the learning content. For example, when learning materials on probability are combined with a tree diagram, while for a system of equations, supplementary illustrations tend to distract learners and add no value. This is independent of whether learners would classify themselves as a so-called "visual learning type".

The sentence just presented is a refutation text. Refutation texts are always structured as in the example above: First, they name the existing misconception, then it is invalidated, and finally the correct concept according to the current state of science is introduced and explained. Refutation texts are an effective and low-threshold measure for reducing misconceptions and stimulating concept change.

In the present study, the following types of texts were compared as a measure to clarify misconceptions related to learning with multimedia: 1) traditional textbook text, 2) classic refutation text, 3) personalized refutation text. It was found that the personalized refutation texts, which were adapted to the participants' responses in a pretest, stimulated more conceptual change in the teachers and thus provided a better reduction of misconceptions compared to textbook texts and classical refutation texts. In contrast, the classic refutation texts (without personalization) were not significantly more effective than textbook-only texts.

In the present study, the more positive effect of the personalized refutation texts was shown only with respect to the participants' theoretical knowledge. The more positive effect could not be transferred to the practical actions of the teachers (selection of certain multimedia teaching materials). Here, no significant differences were found between the three groups. The consequences for the design and selection of multimedia learning materials should be further investigated.

Conclusion: The digital implementation of an adaptive system that enables personal feedback is a strength of the study. The intervention succeeds so sparingly even with groups of people who have little time - such as practicing teachers.

Reference: Dersch, A.-S., Renkl, A., & Eitel, A. (in press). Personalized Refutation Texts Best Stimulate Teachers'Conceptual Change About Multimedia Learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12671