20110115

eReading too easy for actual retention of content?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/the-benefit-of-ugly-fonts/
 

There is strong theoretical justification to believe that disfluency could lead to improved retention and classroom performance. Disfluency has been shown to lead people to process information more deeply, more abstractly, more carefully, and yield better comprehension, all of which are critical to effective learning.

 

This new paper attempted to provide the most direct test yet of the benefits of disfluency. I'd like to focus on their second experiment, as it involved actual students in actual classrooms in Chesterfield, Ohio. The researchers began by getting supplementary classroom material, such as PowerPoint presentations, handouts and worksheets, from a variety of teachers. (Subjects included English, Physics, U.S. History and Chemistry.) Then, the researchers changed the fonts on all of the materials, transforming the fluent text into a variety of disfluent formats, such Monotype Corsiva, Comic Sans Italicized and Haettenshweiler. Because all of the teachers included in the study taught at least two sections of the same class, the psychologists were able to conduct a neatly controlled experiment. One group of students was given the classroom materials with the disfluent fonts, while the other group was taught with the usual mixture of Helvetica and Arial. The font size remained the same.

 

After several weeks of instruction, the students were then tested on their retention of the material. In every class except chemistry, the students in the disfluent condition performed significantly better than those in the control-fluent condition.* Here are the scientists:

 

This study demonstrated that student retention of material across a wide range of subjects (science and humanities classes) and difficulty levels (regular, Honors and Advanced Placement) can be significantly improved in naturalistic settings by presenting reading material in a format that is slightly harder to read…. The potential for improving educational practices through cognitive interventions is immense. If a simple change of font can significantly increase student performance, one can only imagine the number of beneficial cognitive interventions waiting to be discovered. Fluency demonstrates how we have the potential to make big improvements in the performance of our students and education system as a whole.

 

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