final proposal- problem statement

Running Head: Presentation style and level of retention 1

Presentation style and level of information retention in training- An empirical study

Cameron Mitton

Experiencing Research 485

Brigham Young University-Idaho

Presentation style and level of retention 2

For a long time, lectures and trainings were conducted with a chalkboard or a whiteboard.

Today, technology has been fully submerged into businesses and educational domains and is

becoming a “necessity” for presentation (Thomas, 2002). Microsoft PowerPoint software is

starting to be a customary method for trainings and presentations (Gupta, 2011; Kraus, R. 2008;

Schrad, 2010). Microsoft estimated that over 30 million presentations happen in one day and that

PowerPoint itself is on 250 million computers around the world (Amare, 2006). Despite this

current frequency of use and statistics, the question is still continuing to be asked. Is PowerPoint

or the blackboard the best method for yielding higher information retention rates in presentation?

Teachers, leaders in businesses, and other expanses of public instruction have been concerned

with determining the most effective way to present new ideas to an audience that will produce

the maximum amount of positive retention results with that audience (Jacobson 2001, Masi &

Cook, 2000).

Regardless of the prevalent acceptance of PowerPoint, many researchers have entertained

the idea that its didactic use actually has the potential to decrease student engagement (Craig &

Amernic, 2006; Klemm, 2007; Schrad, 2010). They claim that because of the illuminated screen,

PowerPoint becomes more of a movie like setting which leads to unfocused attention of the

learner. In addition to those findings, Sunita & Mukundraj (2014) found that the students who

attended class with the chalkboard as the presentation aid received a higher score on the MCQ

test than those who attended the lecture using a PowerPoint, and that 67.5% of the student-

participants recorded preferring chalkboard lectures over PowerPoint. Craig and Amernic

conclude that one of the prominent didactic problems with PowerPoint presentations is that

learners are passively involved in the process of learning the information.


Some research suggests that within the appropriate bounds, PowerPoint can be the most

effective method for participant retention. Valdez (2013) concluded that PowerPoints embedded

with questions, were much more likely to produce higher retention rates. Another study that was

conducted focused on the effectiveness of multimedia presentations and teaching foreign

language vocabulary. The group that was taught using the multimedia presentation had more

positive results than the control group (Yavuz, 2007). Hove and Corcoran (2008) discovered that

students performed better using a PowerPoint lecture compared to a traditional lecture style, such

as the Blackboard.

Regarding information retention, most of the research conducted has been recorded over

a longer period of time. This is where I find uniqueness in my study. I am interested in

determining the immediate retention effects of the presentation style as opposed to looking at

more long term effects. My reasoning behind this is accounting for the external factors that

accompany prolonged studies. One issue to take into consideration is accounting for the learners

studying outside of the educators training session. Their individual results might not accurately

reflect which presentation style is best because of their extra efforts outside of the training to

learn the material. Concerning vocation, (Lee & Singer, 2012) found that doing a follow up on

training provided information that proved to produce greater results regarding work productivity

and instructional comprehension. Schneider, Healy, Barshi, Kole (2011) found that when

teaching someone to follow instructions, initially, the retention was much higher with those that

were given the special form of training (person centered) as opposed to the verbal. However,

after conducting a follow up on the retention of the trainees they found that retention was only

perfect when the training and test conditions had matched up correctly. This research suggests

that gathering data after a certain period of time might produce false or different data because of


the learning that occurs in between the presentation and the data collection that is typically

unaccounted for.

Although there has been research directed towards more long term results of information

retention, there is little research regarding immediate retention following a presentation. I am

interested in finding out if using a PowerPoint presentation or the traditional method of the

chalkboard is more effective in the immediate retention of the audience. I believe that

understanding which method produces higher immediate retention results might serve as a more

accurate predictor of the proper method one should use to bring about an increase in long term

information retention. I hypothesize that the retention will be greater for those who are presented

to with a PowerPoint presentation. To explore this question and my hypothesis, I will try to

reduce the study to its simplest form. I will be having two groups assigned, to which one will be

taught using a PowerPoint and one with a Chalkboard. The participants will be quizzed on their

level of information retention following each of the presentations.

This study could serve as useful information for instructors of all types including:

teachers, business owners, managers and other people that are involved in training large groups

of people simultaneously. All of these educators are concerned with the issue of getting the

information being taught to penetrate the mind of the learner and to stay there permanently. It

seems clear that this study will serve as another key for unlocking deeper information on training

and learning. Thanks to this research, educators will know of a more effective method for getting

better retention out of their employees, students, and other trainees.

Method

Participants


Participants will consist of students from Brigham Young University- Idaho, this

population consists mostly of white males and females ranging from ages 18 to 28 on average. I

will take 40 students from a general Psychology class will be randomly selected to conduct the

study. In as much as this is a general Psychology class, most students will come from very

different educational backgrounds. This will help to give an accurate representation of all

students at Brigham Young University-Idaho. I anticipate that there will be some declared

Psychology major students, but not an outsized enough amount to induce sampling bias.

The study will be centered on the subject of leadership training and retention. The

training will be conducted by way of presentation. Using this specific concept of leadership

training as a presentation topic will also improve the internal validity of the study because it will

be rare for the students to have studied the particular topic that they be will receiving instruction

on in the experiment. Most students will have no or little experience regarding leadership

effectiveness, which should promote an increase in concentration and active listening during the

training. Students with disabilities such as deafness and blindness, or any other possible learning

disabilities will be excluded from the study.

Participants will be selected from each class on a first come first serve basis for an option

to receive class credit, or extra credit (as offered by the professor) for the class. Students will be

allowed to participate if they don’t have the disabilities listed above, if they comply with the

scheduled meeting time, and if they fill out the quiz provided following the training. To insure

that we get (the sample size needed) or more participants for our sample size, the students will

receive the class credit, or extra credit only after the study is completed in its entirety. This

should also help to reduce attrition from the participants.

Measures


A questionnaire will be administered to the volunteer students in each class following the

study. Each questionnaire will consist of items regarding leadership training information that

they will have received during the presentation. The presenter will be a theater major volunteer

student that I will be paying to help with the trainings. The presenter will be trained exactly how

to present the information using both PowerPoint and the Black/White board. The presenter will

also be instructed to keep the same character including: voice tone, dress, hand movements,

questions etc., for both presentations. The independent variable is the presentation aid that is

used to train the participants about leadership. The dependent variable is the level of individual

student information retention, which will be measured using a test following each presentation.

This test will be conducted modeling the experimental between subjects research design.

Materials

A research randomizer will be used to randomize the groups for the PowerPoint

presentations and SPSS to assess the scores of the quizzes following the presentations. The

material for the leadership presentation will be created by myself as well as the questions that

will be given to the participants.

Procedures

During the semester a teacher for a general Psychology class will announce an

opportunity to receive credit or some extra credit work for the course. The requirement to earn

the extra credit will be to participate in the study. The participants will receive an email

notification informing them when and where they are to go for the study. Inasmuch as I will be

using only one presenter for both groups, each group will have to report at a different time. The

students will be unaware that they will have been assigned to a particular group. The participants


upon arrival, will be randomly assigned to a seat in the classroom. One group will be instructed

on leadership training with the aid of a blackboard or whiteboard and one group will be

instructed with a PowerPoint presentation. Each group will be trained for a fixed amount of time

of 30 minutes and will have 20 minutes to take a 15 question quiz immediately afterward. The

quiz will be a pen and paper multiple-choice quiz that is to be completed at the location of the

study. The participants will be unaware of the quiz following the presentation so as to avoid

students engaging in a heavier level of focus on the presentation, which could potentially

produce false results. The questions for the quiz will be fairly difficult in their assessment of

detail to insure that the students will answer some questions incorrectly and to make sure that

additional focus will be required to succeed. The students will submit the quiz and wait for the

results from the instructor. The final questions of the quiz will assess how they felt during the

quiz, and how well they felt they remembered the material covered, and their opinion concerning

the difficulty of the quiz. After all of the participants have completed the quiz the groups will be

informed on intent of the study and will be able to have any questions explained in more detail.


References

Amare, N. (2006) To Slideware or not to Slideware: Students‟ Experiences with PowerPoint vs.

Lecture, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 36(3), pp. 297-308

Craig, R. & Amernic, J. (2006). PowerPoint Presentation Technology and the Dynamics of

Teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 31(3), 147-160. doi:10.1007/s10755-006- 9017-

5

Gupta, R. (2011). Faculty Perceptions and Use of PowerPoint. Language in India, 11(12), pp.

442-453

Hove, M. C., & Corcoran, K. J. (2008). Educational technologies: Impact on learning and

frustration. Teaching of Psychology, 35, 121–125

Jacobson, S. (2011) Leadership effects on student achievement and sustained school success, the

International Journal of Educational Management, 25(1), pp. 33-44

Klemm, W. R. (2007). Computer Slide Shows: A Trap For Bad Teaching. College Teaching,

55(3), 121-124

Kraus, R. (2008). Presentation Software: Strong Medicine or Tasty Placebo? Canadian Journal

of Science, Mathematics & Technology Education, 8(1), 70-81.

doi:10.1080/14926150802152350

Lee, G., Singer, D. J. (2012) Effects of fluency versus accuracy training on endurance and

retention of assembly tasks by four adolescents with developmental disabilities, Journal

of behavioral education, 21(1), pp. 1-17. doi:10.1007/s10864-011-9142-9

Masi, R., J., Cooke, R., A. (2000) Effects of transformational leadership on subordinate

motivation, empowering norms, and organizational productivity, International Journal of

Organizational Analysis, 8(1), pp. 16-47


Thomas, D. E. J. (2002) Technology Integrated Classes versus Traditional Classes and their

Impact on User Performance and Perceptions. Proceedings of the International

Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE„02)

Samur, Y. (2012) Redundancy effect on retention of vocabulary words using multimedia

presentation, British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(6), pp. 166-170

Schneider, V., I., Healy, A., F., Barshi, I., Kole, J., A. (2011) Following navigation instructions

presented verbally or spatially: Effects on training, retention and transfer, Applied

cognitive Psychology, 25(1), pp. 53-67

Schrad, M. (2010). In Defense of the Populist Lecture. PS: Political Science and Politics, 43(4),

759-765

Sunita, B. deSa & Mukundraj, S., Keny. (2014) PowerPoint versus Chalkboard Based Lectures

in Pharmacology: Evaluation of Their Impact on Medical Student’s Knowledge and Their

Preferences, International Journal of Advanced Health Sciences, 1(5), pp. 1-13

Valdez, A. (2013) Multimedia learning from PowerPoint: Use of adjunct questions, Psychology

Journal 10(1), pp. 35-44

Yavuz, A. (2007) Effects of multimedia annotations on incidental vocabulary learning and

reading comprehension of advanced learners of english as a foreign language,

Instructional Science, 35(6), pp. 499-517


Informed consent form to participate in research

Introduction

This study is being conducted by Cameron Mitton to determine how different presentation styles affect audience members’ retention of the presented information.

Procedures

The participants will attend a training presentation will take thirty minutes to complete. Immediately following the presentation, there will be set time of twenty minutes alluded to the participants to provide information regarding the presentation they attended.

Risks/ Discomforts

There are minimal risks to your participation in this study. Any participant that is involved in training of some form might be interested in knowing what conclusions were drawn from this study. The treatment or procedure may involve risks that are currently unforeseeable.

Benefits

The benefits or results of this research could help anyone who participate or are actively involved in training and has a desire to help their audience remember information form their various training sessions. It will provide trainers with a reliable option for presenting information to large groups. Overall there are no direct benefits for the participants.

Confidentiality

The individual scores and responses of the student participants will kept confidential to the researcher. In addition there will be no reference to a student’s individual identification at any time in the research.

Compensation

Compensation will be offered in two forms. One form is a refreshment (pizza) following the study. The second is that your teacher may offer you class credit, or extra credit for their participation.

Participation

Your participation in this research study is voluntary. You have the right to withdraw at any time or refuse to participate entirely without jeopardy to your class status, grade or standing with the university.

Questions about the research

If you have questions regarding this study you may contact Cameron Mitton at 208-339-6600, or by email at [email protected]

Questions about your Rights as Research Participants

If you have questions regarding your rights as a participant in research projects, you may contact Dr. Scott Bergstrom, Director of Institutional Research, KIM 290C, BYU-Idaho, Rexburg, ID 83460; phone, (208) 496-1136; email, [email protected].

mailto:[email protected]


I have read the information provided above. I have been given an opportunity to ask questions, and all of my questions have been answered to my satisfaction. I have been given a copy of the informed consent form.

BY SIGNING THIS FORM, I WILLINGLY AGREE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE

RESEARCH IT DESCRIBES.

_________________________________________________Name of Research Subject

_________________________________________________ ______________Signature of Research Subject Date

final proposal- problem statement

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