Exploring the impact of social cues in multimedia learning design on eap classes: An investigation of the personalization and voice principles

This study investigates whether the use of high social cues (the personalization and voice principles) affects the achievement of EAP learners on how to write a response paper. These principles suggest that people learn better when a multimedia presentation includes high social cues (a conversational speaking style, polite wording, and an appealing voice) (Mayer, 2020). The study comprised 221 EAP students in Turkey at a private university. It was conducted with two groups who received multimedia presentations with narration that included either high social cues or low social cues (formal speaking style, direct commands, and a monotonous voice). A pretest and posttest were implemented to evaluate the effect of each style, and the results were compared. The results demonstrated no significant difference between the two styles regarding learning. However, both groups had significantly higher scores after multimedia presentations.