Is animation always better for learning Chinese characters?

The present study investigated the effect of animations on Chinese character learning in multimedia presentations. In particular, we examined whether animations focusing on different knowledge of characters would yield different performance among students learning Chinese characters. The role of the animations which focused on the etymology of Chinese characters was tested in Experiment 1 with twelve English secondary school students. The results found that etymological animations were superior to flashcards for learners in recognizing forms of Chinese characters but not for understanding their meanings. In Experiment 2, the effect of animations which focused on demonstrating stroke order along with the audio explanations and on-screen written texts was addressed with 60 Thai secondary school students. The results revealed that animations demonstrating stroke order did not provide learners with advantages in orthographic learning. However, the findings support the redundant principle that static imagery and spoken and written text together facilitated character learning. In addition, the study showed that the students’ pace and flexibility of learning, the level of character difficulty, and students’ active processing have significant roles in character learning performance in a multimedia settings. This study provides implications for the design of multimedia instruction in foreign language acquisition and sheds light on the theoretical assumptions of dual-coding theory regarding learners’ cognitive loads in multimedia processing.