Paul A. Kirschner & Mirjam Neelen

There’s a hierarchy of scientific evidence. At the bottom is evidence obtained through anecdotal evidence and expert opinions. At the top is evidence from randomized controlled trials, systematic review articles, and meta-reviews/meta-analyses.

Now there’s an article that might even rank higher on this ‘ladder’. Michael Noetel and seven colleagues conducted a meta-meta-analysis to determine whether certain multimedia design principles really held up. In their article ‘Multimedia design for learning: An overview of reviews with meta-meta-analysis’, they sought to (1)determine how multimedia can best be designed and (2)study to what extent both cognitive load theory[1] (CLT; John Sweller et al.) and the cognitive theory of multimedia learning[2] (CTML; Richard Mayer et al.) remained valid. They analysed data from 29 published systematic reviews, consisting of 1,189 studies with a total of 78,177 participants, all studying the effects of CLT and CTML on…