Research – Mind. Blown.

As we progress through the semester I came across a column from 2015 that blew my mind. It explains that by putting text on slides I may be overloading my student’s working memory and actually making it harder for them to learn.

The column mentions this study from the 1990s that looked at what happens when information is presented to students verbally and visually. Here is some of the discussion:

“Human cognitive capacity is limited: we can process only a very limited amount of information at any one time. Cognitive load theory assumes that information presented to learners should be designed in a way to reduce any avoidable load on working memory. The experiments of this article were designed to test some ways of avoiding cognitive overload due to learners having to split their attention between text and diagrams.”
General Discussion

A common myth in instructional design is that repetition in any form will help retention and that just simply isn’t what this study found. The two Experiments:

“Experiment 1 demonstrated that the modality effect may be used as a means of negating the problems associated with split-attention. A dual-mode instructional presentations resulted in superior learning compared with instructional materials presented in a split-source, visual-only format due to working memory capacity being enhanced under dual-modality conditions. Three computer-based multimedia instructional formats on theoretical aspects of soldering were compared (Visual text, Audio text, and Visual plus Audio text) using participants without any substantial knowledge of soldering. The Audio text group demonstrated a lower number of reattempts at interactive exercises, a lower subjective rating of cognitive load and higher test performance scores than each of the other two groups.”
General Discussion

My first guess would be that visual plus audio text would be best here. Soldering is a visual activity! But it turns out when learning a new skill it is easy to overload working memory and crowd out information.

“Experiment 2 was performed to test colour-coding of text and diagrams as an alternative technique for circumventing the cognitive load consequences of split attention. Colouring elements of a diagram in the same unique colours as corresponding textual elements was hypothesized to reduce an unnecessary working memory load by reducing search processes. Two computer-based instructional formats in elementary electrical engineering (conventional separate-diagram-and-text and colour-coded-diagram-and-text) were compared. The conventional format included an electrical circuit with a textual explanation written beneath the circuit. The colourcoded format consisted of exactly the same diagram and text, except that by clicking on any paragraph in the text all the electrical elements mentioned in that paragraph and depictions of those elements in the diagram were converted to the same unique colours.”
General Discussion

What was found in the second experiment is that the combination of visual diagrams and text is effective but can still cause overload. So what is the solution? Let’s go back to the original column:

“Eliminate textual elements from presentations and instead talk through points, sharing images or graphs with students.”
Richard Mayer

It will take me some time to work through my current slides and eliminate text but I think the gain will be worth it. I will still keep my text-heavy slides to offer up as notes.

The Welfare Effects of Social Media

While I am not a social scientist I recognize the impact of social science findings on the areas I work in and this paper is no different. This study was conducted by researchers from Stanford and was released in November of 2019. They created a randomized experiment where some people were paid to deactivate Facebook for 4 weeks and over that time and after were asked about their well-being and news consumption among other questions.

As an older millennial Facebook came to Northeastern when I was there in 2004 and I have had an account ever since. Back then you had a wall and it was only college students, today most users (at least in the US) are beyond college age. There are tons of articles out there about the ills of social media and also how to stop using it.

I rarely look at Facebook, I don’t have the app on my phone anymore so I have to navigate their from the web. I do not miss it, which is consistent with the findings in this study. I am still on Instagram and I read Twitter daily so it is possible my social media habits are satisfied in other ways.

So what blew my mind about this study? Let’s look at the results.

“Our results leave little doubt that Facebook provides large benefits for its users. Even after a four week “detox,” our participants spent substantial time on Facebook every day and needed to be paid large amounts of money to give up Facebook. Our results on news consumption and knowledge suggest that Facebook is an important source of news and information. Our participants’ answers in free response questions and follow-up interviews make clear the diverse ways in which Facebook can improve people’s lives, whether as a source of entertainment, a means to organize a charity or an activist group, or a vital social lifeline for those who are otherwise isolated.”
Conclusion

Needing to be paid to give up Facebook is a red flag but then again think about how much I would need to pay you to give up your phone for 4 weeks. If you dig into the results of this study you see that different people use Facebook very differently but find great value in visiting the site daily, even after leaving it for a month during the 2018 Midterm elections.

Now on to the good that deactivating Facebook can do.

“We find that four weeks without Facebook improves subjective well-being and substantially reduces post-experiment demand, suggesting that forces such as addiction and projection bias may cause people to use Facebook more than they otherwise would. We find that while deactivation makes people less informed, it also makes them less polarized by at least some measures, consistent with the concern that social media have played some role in the recent rise of polarization in the US.”
Conclusion

What blew my mind here is that people had reduced demand to go back after leaving Facebook. The other findings that people feel better and some of the squishier social science factors are also interesting. The takeaway here is that if you feel Facebook isn’t good for you then just stop and it will get easier. Remove the app from your phone, delete the bookmark in your browser, etc.