[LINK] Research points the finger at PowerPoint

[Jan Whitaker]

At 08:44 PM 23/04/2007, David Boxall wrote:
>It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you 
>in the written and spoken form at the same time."

You may not believe this, but it's true: I did a similar study of 
this very phenomenon with children when I was in grad school a few 
decades ago.
  presentation of a story in various combination of pictures, text, 
and voice followed by a comprehension test.

I don't remember the results exactly, but as this story says, the 
combination of text and voice reading the words was one of if not the 
worst outcome. The hypothesis is that reading words oneself and 
hearing words from someone else at the same time sets up a conflict 
because we take in information through those separate code channels 
(seeing and hearing words) at different rates. Pictures helped 
because they added complimentary information that was a different 
coding system.

I didn't do the subsequent study which would be a variance on the 
powerpoint one: use key words and illustrations rather than complete 
sentences. The hypothesis is that the key words would provide 'word 
bites' for organisation or mental 'hooks' and the concepts reinforced 
by the illustrations just like the picture stories with the kids.


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
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