Mind your Ps and Qs! How polite instructions affect learning with multimedia

The present study examined the role of politeness in instructions during learning with a multimedia web page. By incorporating former studies of the politeness effect, this study provides new insights into a possible operationalization of politeness for instructional messages. Based on a two-sided view (direct vs. polite), one hundred and twenty German upper secondary school students learned all about attribution theories while clicking through a learning web page where only instructional pages differed. The students were randomly assigned to one cell of a 2 (direct vs. polite) × 2 (on-screen vs. auditory) between-subjects factorial design. Results confirm the politeness effect for retention and transfer performances, showing large effect sizes. Students reported significantly higher scores on interest, probability of success, and learning assistance in the polite treatment group while scores on directness, restriction of freedom, extraneous cognitive load, and mental effort are significantly lower, however, no interaction was found for modality and politeness. Additionally, polite variations were not assessed as social cues. For this, a new term of cultural cues in multimedia learning is proposed.