Individual differences in selective attention and engagement shape students’ learning from visual cues and instructor presence during online lessons

Although some researchers recommend minimizing extraneous visual information in multimedia lessons, others have demonstrated that features such as visual cues and instructor videos can enhance learning. However, variability in selective attention skills may influence students’ ability to benefit from these additional features. This study investigated links between college students’ selective attention skills and their learning from video lessons that varied in the use of visual cues and the instructor video. Learning outcomes depended on both the visual features available and students’ effort and selective attention skills. Among students who reported increased effort during the lessons, those with more efficient selective attention benefited most when a single additional feature (i.e., either visual cues or the instructor video) was used. All students, regardless of attention skills, benefited when both visual cues and the instructor were combined. These findings suggest that learning during multimedia lessons may depend on the visual features of the lessons and the student’s effort and attention skills.