Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes

[JEL]

Quoting this text:

Diemand-Yauman, C., et al. Fortune favors the Bold (and the Italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes. Cognition (2010), doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.09.012

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/opplab/papers/Diemand-Yauman_Oppenheimer_2010.pdf


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Based on this premise being true:

in some cases making material harder to learn can improve long-term learning and retention

It is suggested that simply by using hard-to-read fonts learning can be enhanced:

Study 1 found that information in hard-to-read fonts was better remembered than easier to read information in a controlled laboratory setting.
Study 2 extended this finding to high school classrooms. The results suggest that superficial changes to learning materials could yield significant improvements in educational outcomes.

For example, Alter and his colleagues presented participants with logical syllogisms in either an easy- or difficult-to-read font. Participants were significantly less confident in their ability to solve the problems when the font was hard-to-read, however they were in reality significantly more successful.

As a fun little side-note to us Orbiteers Study 1, the lab-study, involved aliens :

Participants were asked to learn about three species of aliens

Not only a good thing though. The text notes a possible unwanted side-effect when using this method:

Another concern is that because disfluent reading is, by definition, perceived as more difficult, less motivated students may become frustrated.

The text, after having gone through both Study 1 and Study 2, concludes:

This study demonstrated that student retention of material across a wide range of subjects ... and difficulty levels ... can be significantly improved in naturalistic settings by presenting reading material in a format that is slightly harder to read.

Apparently this font is better for teaching purposes than this font

 

[Artlav]

I wonder if they ruled out novelty effect.

Anything presented in a novel way would yield better results at first.

God forbid some politician understanding this literally and making already-stupid textbooks indecipherably printed.

 

[Wishbone]

Been there done that. Scientific texts are best printed in Serif, manuals and warning labels should be Sans Serif.

 

[Ae7flux]

So slowing a student down aids retention. Surprising? We used to have something like that - it was called 'learning by heart'. Trouble is, it was horribly inefficient and had little to do with actual education. That making something harder is effective in the experimental context is, as Artlav suggests, most likely down to the novelty effect. Applied on a regular basis it'd be like the person who marks all their tasks urgent because that way everything gets done quicker.

Anyway thanks for another piece of data confirming my low opinion of psychological research.

 

[RisingFury]

28 participents from a single university of ages between 18 and 40?! Is this someone's idea of a joke? What the heck am I supposed to do with this? I've never seen a better example of gonzo science.

---------- Post added at 18:50 ---------- Previous post was at 18:29 ----------

The first problem I have with this study is the population sample... 28 is too few, they were all pulled from a single university, let alone from a single country...
They were pulled in from different disciplines and across different ages... that even further divides the population. We know that younger people have a capacity for learning then older (it's difficult enough teaching your grand parents to send an email, right?)... not to even mention genter, ethnicity,...


The second problem I have with the study is the amount of information to be learned, the alloted time and the motivational tool. While $12 ain't much, it sure is worth the hour or so they blew on the study and it sure is better motivation then a highschool student's biology class. They were required to learn 21 pieces of info in 90 seconds... that ain't gonna get you through highschool.


It may well be that what the paper claims is true and better evidence and sample size is presented in study 2, but I think this study should be repeated after a much greater sample size and in a much more... highschool like environment... students actually preparing for a test.

 

[SiameseCat]

What happens if a whole textbook gets written in a weird font? My guess is most students will stop reading the textbook completely, which is probably not a good way to learn.

 

[RisingFury]

What happens if a whole textbook gets written in a weird font? My guess is most students will stop reading the textbook completely, which is probably not a good way to learn.

Exactly my point! Anyone that looks at this study with one eye will think it's best to reprint textbooks with a funky font. That's not a decision you wanna make after a 90 second test...

 

[JEL]

I wonder if they ruled out novelty effect.

Here's what they say about that:

One alternative explanation to the notion that disfluency leads to deeper processing is that the hard-to-read fonts were more distinctive and that the effects were driven by distinctiveness. While we cannot conclusively rule out this possibility, it is worth noting that we sampled fonts that are within the normal variation used in textbooks and classroom environments. So, while the disfluent fonts were less typical than our fluent fonts, they were not extreme as to cause them to stand out as unusual. Moreover, over the course of a semester, any novelty of the hard-to-read fonts should wear off thus reducing the impact of distinctiveness. Of course, it is likely the effects are multiply determined, which makes pinning down the precise mechanism quite challenging. Regardless of the underlying cognitive process, the implications of the finding for educational practice are non-trivial.

thanks for another piece of data confirming my low opinion of psychological research.

Which is why I didn't prefix this thread with the label 'science'

It may well be that what the paper claims is true and better evidence and sample size is presented in study 2, but I think this study should be repeated after a much greater sample size and in a much more... highschool like environment... students actually preparing for a test.

Regarding Study 2:

Two hundred and twenty-two high school students (ages 15–18) from a public school in Chesterland, Ohio participated in the study. This school accommodates approximately 930 students from grades 9–12 and reported a 98.6% graduation rate (90% continue onto further education) and 95% attendance rate in 2008. Ninety-eight percent of students self-identify as White.

The length of the study in each individual classroom varied depending on the length of the teacher’s lesson plan, ranging from a week and a half for history to nearly a month for physics.

After the units were completed ... exams were taken

Students in the disfluent condition scored higher on classroom assessments ... than those in the control

I don't know if 222 is a serious number in this regard. Typically news-papers use about a 1000 people when they do opinion-polls.

Still Princeton is taken very seriously by many. Maybe too seriously?

 

[fireballs619]

I would assume this is because the student must concentrate harder to actually read what is written. It's the same concept that my teachers used when making us take notes-the more time we spent focusing on something, the more likely we were to remember what we were focusing on.

 

[RisingFury]

I don't know if 222 is a serious number in this regard. Typically news-papers use about a 1000 people when they do opinion-polls.

It's still very low. Clinical trials for treatments usually use thousands, even tens of thousands and are repeated many times.

This again concentrates on one school only with not much variance in population...

 

[mjessick]

What happens if a whole textbook gets written in a weird font? My guess is most students will stop reading the textbook completely, which is probably not a good way to learn.

I was taught that Germans published everything in a "wierd font" up until 1945. I suppose it all depends on what one is familiar with.