From https://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/richard-mayer

Richard Mayer’s Research Area

Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience

Richard Mayer’s Biography

Richard E. Mayer is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests are in applying the science of learning to education, with current projects on multimedia learning, computer-supported learning, and computer games for learning. His research is at the intersection of cognition, instruction, and technology, with a focus on how to help people learn in ways so they can transfer what they have learned to new situations. He served as President of Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association and Vice President of the American Educational Research Association for Division C (Learning and Instruction).

This video is 20:49 minutes in length.

He is the winner of the Thorndike Award for career achievement in educational psychology, the Scribner Award for outstanding research in learning and instruction, and the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Contribution of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award.

He is ranked #1 as the most productive educational psychologist in the world in Contemporary Educational Psychology. He has served as Principal Investigator or co-PI on more than 30 grants, including recent grants from the Office of Naval Research to investigate how to improve the effectiveness of educational games, from the Institute of Education Sciences to investigate the effectiveness of features of an online tutoring system, and from the National Science Foundation to study students’ learning and problem-solving strategies.

He is former editor of the Educational Psychologist and former co-editor of Instructional Science, and he serves on the editorial boards of 12 journals mainly in educational psychology. He is the author of more than 500 publications including 30 books, such as Learning as a Generative Activity (with L. Fiorella), Computer Games for Learning, Applying the Science of Learning, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Fourth Edition (with R. Clark), Multimedia Learning: Second Edition, Learning and Instruction: Second Edition, Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction: Second Edition (co-editor with P. Alexander) and the Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning: Second Edition (editor).

Richard Mayer’s Research

Dr. Mayer’s main interest is in determining how people learn (i.e., the science of learning) and how to help people learn (i.e., the science of instruction). Dr. Mayer’s research concerns the intersection of cognition, instruction, and technology, including: (1) multimedia learning, such as determining how people learn scientific explanations from computer-based animation, video, and narration; how illustrations affect how people learn from scientific text; or how people learn to solve problems from interactive simulations; (2) learning in computer-supported environments, such as how to improve learning with online pedagogical agents, with online intelligent tutoring systems, with mobile devices, and in virtual reality, and (3) computer games for learning, including determining factors that increase the effectiveness of educational games and examining whether playing computer games can cause improvements in cognitive and perceptual skills.

Dr. Mayer is concerned with how to present information in ways that help people understand, including how to use words and pictures to explain scientific and mathematical concepts. His research is motivated by the question, “How can we help people learn in ways that allow them to use what they have learned to solve new problems that they have never seen before?” Building on cognitive science theories of how people learn, he has developed a cognitive of theory of multimedia learning relevant to the design of on-line instruction. During the past two decades he and his colleagues have conducted over 100 experimental tests leading to 12 research-based principles for how to design on-line learning environments and computer-based games. He is now extending this work to the design of computer games for learning, and using social cues such as polite speech and gesture to increase learner motivation.

Current research grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation include studies investigating how people learn with on-line tutors in computer-based mathematics and science lessons, determining which features of educational games promote deep learning, determining the cognitive consequences of playing computer games, using eye-tracking methodology and cognitive neuroscience methodology to determine how people learn from multimedia lessons, and investigating how the gestures and voice of an on-screen pedagogical agent affect student learning from an online lesson. The unifying goal of these projects is to conduct methodologically rigorous studies that yield research-based principles of instructional design and contribute to cognitive science theories of how people learn.

The Mayer Lab for Research on Learning and Instruction

The Mayer Lab for Research on Learning and Instruction seeks to contribute to our understanding of how people learn (i.e., the science of learning) and how to help people learn (i.e., the science of instruction).

Read more about the Mayer Lab – here.

Richard Mayer – Selected Publications

Please review these – here.

My HPT Video Series

The HPT Practitioner and HPT Legacy Video Series was started by Guy W. Wallace in 2008 as a means of sharing the diversity of HPT Practitioners, and the diversity of HPT Practices in the workplace and in academia. The full set of videos may be found and linked to – here.

HPT – Human Performance Technology – is the application of science – the “technology” part – for Performance Improvement. As the late Don Tosti noted, “All performance is a human endeavor.”

Whether your label for HPT is that, or Performance Improvement or Human Performance Improvement, it is all about Evidence Based Practices for Performance Improvement at the Individual level, the Team level, the Process level, the Department level, the Functional level, the Enterprise level, and at the level of Society/World.

HPT Practitioners operate at all of these levels, as this Video Series clearly demonstrates.

Although ISPI – the International Society for Performance Improvement is the professional home of many HPT Practitioners – the concepts, models, methods, tools and techniques are not limited to any one professional affinity group or professional label.

ISPI just happens to be where I learned about HPT – and has been my professional home since 1979.

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