Performing hand gestures such as pointing and tracing while learning is an area of increasing focus in educational research. Previous studies have demonstrated that learners who performed these gestures while engaging with static paper- or computer-based learning materials performed better on posttests in multiple learning areas, such as mathematics, health sciences and language learning. In this paper, the effects of mimicking pointing and tracing gestures during a timed multimedia lesson on an iPad are investigated. Participants were asked to mimic or observe pointing and tracing gestures while engaging with timed multimedia worked-examples in geometry. Results did not replicate previous findings and instead showed that participants who performed pointing and tracing gestures achieved lower test scores than those who did not. Factors leading to these results are discussed, including redundancy of presented and performed hand gestures, the management of multiple modalities, the timed nature of worked example videos used and the studying of optimised learning materials. When considering these results, future research may consider the effects of pointing and tracing gestures when engaging in complex multimedia learning environments.

在学习时执行诸如指向和追踪等手势是教育研究日益关注的领域。先前的研究表明，在使用静态纸质或计算机学习材料时做出这些手势的学习者在数学、健康科学和语言学习等多个学习领域的后测中表现更好。本文研究了在 iPad 上的定时多媒体课程中模仿指向和追踪手势的效果。参与者被要求模仿或观察指向和追踪手势，同时参与几何中的定时多媒体工作示例。结果并没有重复之前的发现，而是表明，进行指向和追踪手势的参与者比不进行指向和追踪手势的参与者获得了更低的测试分数。讨论了导致这些结果的因素，包括呈现和执行的手势的冗余、多种模式的管理、所使用的工作示例视频的时间性质以及优化学习材料的研究。在考虑这些结果时，未来的研究可能会考虑在复杂的多媒体学习环境中指向和追踪手势的影响。