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Chapter 4
Features of Computerized Multimedia
Environments that Support Vicarious Learning
Processes
Barry Gholson, Roby Coles, and Scotty D. Craig
Department of Psychology, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA
The broad aim of this chapter is to explore how cognitive activities may be facili-
tated when the goal is to construct new knowledge in computerized environments
designed to support vicarious learning (Cox, McKendree, Tobin, Lee, & Mayes,
1999; Craig, Gholson, & Driscoll, 2002; Gholson & Craig, 2006; McKendree,
Good, & Lee, 2001; McNamara, Levinstein, & Boonthum, 2004; Scardamelia et al.,
1992). As used here, vicarious learning takes place in environments in which
learners have no opportunity to control any aspect of the source or content of mate-
rials they attempt to master. For example, in these environments vicarious learners
are not required to engage in collaborative activities (Butcher, 2006; Chi, Roy, &
Hausmann, 2008; Hausmann & Chi, 2002; Mayer, 1997, 2001; Rummel & Spada,
2005), to control the flow of input information (Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann &
Glaser, 1989; Mayer & Chandler, 2001; Mayer, 2001), or to answer questions (Ge
& Land, 2003; Graesser & Person, 1994). Although learners may voluntarily choose
to engage in overt activities, no attempt is made to control, monitor, or record
them. Thus, as used here, vicarious learning involves only covert activities and, of
course, any unspecified overt activities in which learners may spontaneously engage
while looking and listening. Our discussion will highlight how specific features of
computer-presented course content that support vicarious learning may be readily
implemented in multimedia environments.
We will only briefly mention vicarious learning research presented prior to
the last couple of decades (e.g., Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963; Rosenthal &
Zimmerman, 1978). It mostly involved modeling and imitation, only tangentially
addressed issues of concern in this selected review, and was usually conducted in a
behaviorist context. Bandura's classic studies (1962; Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961;
Bandura et al., 1963) in which children imitated physical and verbal aggression
modeled by adults assaulting Bobo dolls are, of course, familiar to anyone who
has read an introductory psychology textbook in the past few decades. His work
brought one kind of vicarious learning (imitation) into the mainstream of academia
and the broader social milieu. It fueled an enormous amount of research during
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