Learning contexts - does multimedia affect physics learning?

This paper proposes that several contexts influence students' learning: the institutional, the learning material as well as personal experiences evoked by the tasks. We made a study of the effect of abstract, static and dynamic illustrations coupled to a text concerning the principle of equivalence. Students in a university physics course explained their reasoning in tasks that might be answered from common sense reasoning, memory of the learning material, textbook knowledge or a combination of these. We found that students in all groups used textbook language in their explanations, which is an evidence of the context of the physics class. Common sense explanations were common in the group given concrete illustrations. This indicates that the particular learning experience has some effect. Contradictory everyday experience was often introduced in the explanations and seemed to inhibit the understanding of the principle taught.