List VOL.3NO.2 publication date:October 2016 Back The Effects of Using Stepwise Attention-Guiding Multimedia Instruction to Learn Properties of Tangents to Circles     Author:Ming-Jang Chen, Chun-Yi Lee, Kin Hang Lei, Chen-Yi Yang Research Article Download The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of using stepwise attention-guiding multimedia instruction on mathematics learning abilities of junior high school students.The topic “Properties of tangents to circles” was chosen as the learning content for this experiment because it involved complex information. By guiding students to observe the key elements inageometric graph, the information in their working memory was expected to integrate effectively with prior knowledge. The participants were 116eighth grade students from four classes in a public junior high school of Hsinchu County, Taiwan. This study adopted a quasi-experimental design of pretest and posttests with nonequivalent groups. Students were randomly divided based on the kind of instruction used into the high element interactivity group and the low element interactivity group. A two-way factorial analysis of covariance was adopted to compare the impact of the teaching materials design (high element interactivity vs. low element interactivity) and students’ academic achievement (high vs. low) on learning outcomes. The results showed that the students who used the instruction with low element interactivity showed significantly better performance than those who used the instructional version with high element interactivity on both the posttest and the delayed posttest. Students were attained a higher level of efficacy in both learning efficiency and involvement. As expected, students with a high level of academic achievement demonstrated a better performance than those with lower levels. The design using guided attention led to an effective integration of external information in the working memory of students who had enough prior experience. Hence, element interactivity was a key factor in the multimedia-based instructional design. The transfer and retention effects of the instructional design of element interactivity should be further examined in the future. Keywords: element interactivity, stepwise-attention guiding, cognitive load,properties of tangents to circle Developing Eleventh Graders’ Conjecturing and Justifying Power on Generalization of Binary Number Patterns