students learn more with less text that covers the same core topics frank vahid 1,3, alex edgcomb...
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Students Learn More with Less Text that Covers the Same Core Topics
Frank Vahid1,3, Alex Edgcomb1,3, and Roman Lysecky2,3
1Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Univ. of California, Riverside2Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univ. of Arizona
3Also with zyBooks.comCopyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 1 of 9
Design adage
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1939
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 2 of 9
Perfection when nothing to take away
1960 1980 2000 2010 20200
2000400060008000
10000120001400016000
f(x) = 85.0595044 exp( 1.11285885 x )R² = 0.914242867532233
Annual cost of healthcare per person
Annual cost of healthcare per person
Exponential (Annual cost of healthcare per person)
Year
U.S
. Dol
lars
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 3 of 9
1960 1980 2000 2010 20200
5000
10000
15000
Annual cost of healthcare / person
Year
$ U
.S.
Normal text vs. minimal text
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 4 of 9
Reactions
Minimizing text
• IS NOT watering down / lowering standards– IS conveying same ideas with minimal words/letters.
Reducing is hard• Methods– Avoid extra words / phrases– Declarative sentences, subject/verb/object
• Before: There is another method that is also very helpful when searching for items on the web, namely the method of using quotes.
• After: Quotes also help during search.
– Move text to tables when appropriate– (And use animations / learning questions / etc. – other work)
Text on same topic
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 7 of 9
Experiment setup• Text styles:– Normal: 1,255 words– Minimal: 211 words
• Study:1. Pre-quiz2. Lesson (random text style; same topic)
3. Post-quiz4. Survey
• Participants: 168 CS0 students
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 8 of 9
Results
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 9 of 9
Pre-lesson Post-lesson Improvement0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
4.0
5.1
1.1
4.1
6.5
2.4
Normal text
Minimal text
Scor
e
(Max)
Normal text Minimal text p-value
Lesson was right length 3.8 4.8 < 0.001
Liked writing style 3.0 4.3 0.03
Students preferredminimal text
p-value < 0.001
Web: Rethink conveying
• Traditional: Text and figures
• Web: Animations, learning questions, tinker tools, simulators, much more, text, and figures
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 10 of 9
Conclusion
Copyright © 2015 Frank Vahid and Alex Edgcomb, UC Riverside. 11 of 9
• Students learned more with less text than normal text • Building web-native, interactive textbooks [1]
Digital DesignComputing Technology for All Material and Energy and Balances
[1] zyBooks. www.zybooks.com. Oct. 2015.
We are grateful for support of this research by the NSF and Google.