Coherence Principle

There are several key principles found in e-learning. One of the primary principles is called the Coherence Principle. The Coherence Principle states that "all non-essential information in multimedia messages should be elininated ti minimise demands on cognitive resources" (Muller, Lee & Sharma, 2008, p 2111) One thing that many do not realize is, the dropout rate for e-learners is very high. There are estimats that the dropout rate for r-learners is 20 - 50 %, while other schools report that the drop out rae for e-learners is 10 - 20 percentage points higher than students who attend traditional classes. Because of this high dropout rate many instructors have tried to make their presenations more alluring or interesting by placing background music in their power point presntations. But research has proven this is a huge mistake. The advice of Clark & Meyer, 2011, is "don't do it". Learning is much deeper when there is no audio, i.e. sounds and music, are eliminated from e-learning (actually, learning in general). The difference is quite dramatic. In one study students were tested on how much they learned while listening to music and how much they learned without sounds and music. Students who did not have background noise such as music, outperformed students who had background noise by a range 61% - 141%. Another study compared quality of writing. Researchers looked at the quality of essays by students who listened to music versus students who had not listened to music. Although the quality of the essays was simliar, it took students who listened to music considerably longer to write the same quality essay as students in a quiet environment. In conclusion, in an e-learning environment leave the background noise out of your presentations. Soft background music may sound pleasant but only hurts the learning process. The same is true of all background sounds.