PowerPoint Animations May Decrease Learning
By Brian | December 2, 2009 at 6:21 PM | Comment
A study published this summer (PDF) asserts that using animations in PowerPoint to control the rate of information on a slide may actually reduce comprehension by the audience.
Even though the use of custom animation allows the introduction of new information incrementally the technique can adversely impact student learning experience when factual information is conveyed in the presentation. Subjects shown the static slides had better recall of graphics and text on the slides due to prolonged exposure to the information. The incremental introduction of concepts in dynamic slides was designed to prevent student exhaustion caused by visually presenting all concepts at once. However, the dynamic slides lead to excessive processing demands and limited exposure time.
To use the example of a slide with five bullet points: if you added the bullet points incrementally, the last bullet point, which could very likely be the most important point or even a conclusion to the slide, would be available to the audience only a fraction of the amount of time that the first bullet point is available. Seeing the last bullet point only briefly could reduce the audience’s ability to retain that information.
However, the study in question took place in a classroom, where a presentation has a much different function than in a courtroom. Also, the data for the study were gathered using a nine question quiz administered after the viewing of the PowerPoint, so although the scores of those who viewed the animated presentation were approximately 10 points lower than those who viewed the static presentation, that is really only a difference between answering seven questions right and eight questions right. The actual presentation used does not seem to be available, and so we can’t assess whether there are any other issues that might contribute to the discrepancy in scores.
Still, I think it is important to note that simply adding information a piece at a time may not help a jury get more from your presentation than if you just put up the information all at once. There are other methods for focusing a jury’s attention without withholding information, but even more important than that is having a clear message that is communicated as simply as possible, avoiding clutter and unnecessary distractions.
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