Signaling and Highlighting¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (3 for) · 9 studies (4 causal, 2 quant-synthesis, 2 review, 1 theoretical), q2–q4 · 2 of 9 report an effect size

Description¶

Signaling (also called cueing) directs learners' attention to the most important elements of a lesson by adding non-content cues — bold or colored text, arrows, gestures, headings, voice emphasis, or brief verbal pointers ("note how this step changes the sign"). Highlighting is the most common visual form: marking key words, steps, or regions of a diagram so they stand out from surrounding material.

Design Implications¶

Signaling works by guiding selective attention and reducing extraneous processing: learners do not have to search for what matters, freeing working memory for schema construction Cognitive Load Theory [+S]. It is a core recommendation of multimedia learning research — the signaling principle — and pairs naturally with Chunking, since cues often mark chunk boundaries Chunking reduces working memory load. [+S]. Crucially, signaling must be selective: highlighting everything is equivalent to highlighting nothing, and irrelevant decoration actively harms learning Irrelevant material hurts learning. [+S].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A prior analysis of which content is essential versus supporting — signaling cannot substitute for that judgment
• A consistent cueing scheme (e.g., bold = key terms, color = causal links) so learners can interpret cues without effort
• Restraint: cues applied to a small fraction of the material, not a large one

Constraints¶

• Over-highlighting or cueing most of the content eliminates the attentional contrast that makes signaling work [~S] — learners either ignore the cues or treat everything as important
• Learners who highlight their own reading often highlight poorly (isolated facts rather than main ideas), and passive highlighting produces weaker learning than generative strategies [~M]
• Cues that direct attention away from essential content — or that decorate rather than inform — reduce learning Irrelevant material hurts learning. [-S]
• Signaling does not add content; it cannot compensate for missing explanations or absent Practice

Implementation Variability¶

• Visual cues: bolding, color, underlining, arrows, circles on diagrams, motion in animation
• Verbal cues: voice emphasis in narration, signposting phrases ("the key point is…"), preview statements (Advance Organizers)
• Structural cues: headings, numbered steps, and outlines that signal organization (Clear Structure)
• Learner-generated marking: teaching students to highlight strategically, which converts a passive act into an active comprehension strategy (Annotating)

Target Learners¶

• Novices, who lack the prior knowledge to distinguish essential from incidental content on their own [+S]
• Learners prone to cognitive overload [+S], including those working with dense multimedia or complex diagrams
• Less beneficial for experts, who already know where to attend and may find cues redundant [~M]

Target Learning Goals¶

• Comprehension of complex explanatory material: identifying causal structure and key relations
• Efficient study of dense texts or multimedia lessons
• Transfer of attentional strategies: learners taught to signal strategically apply the skill to new material

Instructions¶

1. Identify the 3–5 essential ideas or steps in the material — the subset a learner must not miss.
2. Choose one consistent cue type per function (e.g., bold for key terms, arrows for causal links) and apply it only to those essentials.
3. Add verbal signposts in narration or text that state why the cued item matters, not just that it matters.
4. Remove all decorative color, animation, and emphasis that does not carry meaning Irrelevant material hurts learning. [+S].
5. When asking learners to highlight themselves, model strategic selection first (Think-Aloud) and require them to justify or summarize their marks (Annotating).

Related Strategies¶

• "Headings and Highlight" Strategy — the structural-cue variant using document organization
• Annotating — learner-generated marking as an active alternative to author-supplied cues
• Advance Organizers — signaling applied at the level of lesson structure rather than individual items

Examples¶

• Khan Academy videos use on-screen writing and color emphasis synchronized with narration, cueing each step of a solution as it is explained.
• Anatomy & physiology textbooks (e.g., OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology, https://openstax.org) use color-coded diagrams in which each structure is cued in the same color as its label, linking text and image.
• Perusall (https://www.perusall.com) — social annotation platform where instructor-anchored highlights model what to attend to before students add their own annotations.

Key Sources¶

• Mautone, P. D., & Mayer, R. E. (2001). Signaling as a cognitive guide in multimedia learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), 377–389. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.93.2.377
• Johnson, C. I., & Mayer, R. E. (2012). An eye movement analysis of highlighting in computer-based instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(1), 250–262.
• Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511811678
• Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (2014). Principles for reducing extraneous processing in multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed., pp. 279–315). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139547369.015
• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266