Using Multi-modal Teaching to Increase the Comprehension of Science Concepts

Maria R. GiambancoSEYS 778

Background Information Abstract concepts are usually hard for students to

process, so teachers often use tools like videos to illuminate these topics

Cognitive load theory suggests that there is a limit to the amount of information that can be processed at a single time

Auditory and visual information is processed in different parts of the brain so they can be processed simultaneously

Presenting information that is simultaneously processed in different parts of the brain should be more effective than using only one mode

Methods 3 treatment groups: AV= Audio/visual presentation RV= Reading/visual presentation KAV= Kinesthetic, audio/visual presentation Each groups was administered a pre-test of

regents based question before the start of the chapter.

The assessment included 3 types of questions: diagrams, complex reading and simple reading multiple choice questions.

The same assessment was administered after the mitosis lesson

What I Expected to See Students in the audio/visual group would

perform better on the post-test than those in the reading/visual group

Students in the kinesthetic activity, audio/visual group would perform better on the post-test than those in the audio/visual and reading/visual groups

All three treatments would perform on the post-test than the control group

Null Hypothesis

Ho: Increasing the number of modalities used to teach mitosis will not increase assessment scores.

Pre-Test ANOVA Table

There is no significant differences between the treatment groups

ANOVA SummarySource SS df MS F PTreatment 2.5625 3 0.8542 0.2609 0.85338Error 294.6715 90 3.2741Total 297.234 93

Summary of DataPRE-TEST

AV RV KAV Control TotalN   24 27 21 22 94-X   92 94 72 76 334

-Mean   3.8333 3.4815 3.4286 3.4545 3.5532

-X2   416 404 318 346 1484

Variance   2.7536 2.9516 3.5571 3.974 3.1961

Std.Dev.   1.6594 1.718 1.886 1.9935 1.7878Std.Err.   0.3387 0.3306 0.4116 0.425 0.1844

Data Summary Samples

POST-TEST

AV RV KAV Control TotalN   24 27 21 22 94-X   137 161 141 106 545

-Mean   5.48 5.75 6.4091 4.6087 5.5612

-X2   861 1083 983 564 3491

Variance   4.5933 5.8241 3.7771 3.4308 4.7436Std.Dev.   2.1432 2.4133 1.9435 1.8522 2.178Std.Err.   0.4286 0.4561 0.4143 0.3862 0.22

Data Summary Samples

Post-Test ANOVA Table

There is a significant difference between the treatment groups

ANOVA SummarySource SS df MS F PTreatment 37.8463 3 12.6154 2.8082 0.04378Error 422.2864 94 4.4924Total 460.1327 97

Tukey Multiple Comparison Test

P<0.05KAV vs. Control

Not significantRV vs. Control

Not significantAV vs. Control

Not significantRV vs. KAV

Not significantAV vs. KAV

Not significantAV vs. RV

SignificanceGroups Compared

Kruskal-Wallis Non-Parametric

H=11.99 df=3 p=0.0074

There is a significant difference between the treatment groups

32.360.450.946.3

ControlKAVRVAV

Mean Ranks for Samples

Means By Sex

There was no significant difference between male and female scores for any of the treatment groups

There was also no significant differences found between ethnicities

4.545

6.3

5.857

5.846

Post-test Male

5.0903.54Control

7.0903.5453.7KAV

6.0763.6922.857RV

5.5453.83.587AV

Post-test Female

Pre-testFemale

Pre-testMale

Treatment

Conclusion

Increasing the number of modalities used to teach mitosis does improve assessment scores

DiscussionAlthough there was no significant

differences between any of the treatments, this may be an artifact of the analysis used

The test result of the reading/visual treatment > audio/visual treatment may be because the reading was given before the video instead of simultaneously

Further Analysis Perform a non-parametric comparison test Include free response or interviews in the

assessment Perform an item analysis to see which

questions students had trouble with Re-do the test using a reading that is

incorporated into the video instead of separate