To provide or not to provide course PowerPoint slides? The impact of instructor-provided slides upon student attendance and performance

Despite the prevalence of PowerPoint in professional and educational presentations, surprisingly little is known about how effective such presentations are. All else being equal, are PowerPoint presentations better than purely oral presentations or those that use alternative software tools? To address this question we recreated a real-world business scenario in which individuals presented to a corporate board. Participants (playing the role of the presenter) were randomly assigned to create PowerPoint, Prezi, or oral presentations, and then actually delivered the presentation live to other participants (playing the role of corporate executives). Across two experiments and on a variety of dimensions, participants evaluated PowerPoint presentations comparably to oral presentations, but evaluated Prezi presentations more favorably than both PowerPoint and oral presentations. There was some evidence that participants who viewed different types of presentations came to different conclusions about the business scenario, but no evidence that they remembered or comprehended the scenario differently. We conclude that the observed effects of presentation format are not merely the result of novelty, bias, experimenter-, or software-specific characteristics, but instead reveal a communication preference for using the panning-and-zooming animations that characterize Prezi presentations.

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“…This access could bias student motivation, behavior (e.g., attendance), course satisfaction, and performance (see [20]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does a presentation’s medium affect its message? PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentations

2017

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“…The literature on this topic demonstrates that the provision of slides to students may not be, per se, a solution to this obstacle, because, even with access to slides, students may have difficulties in understanding and developing, in a reasoned way, the necessarily simplified information that they entail, which may have, as demonstrated in the research by Worthington and Levasseur (2015), a negative impact on students' academic performance, probably because it encourages passivity in student learning.…”

Section: Electronic Slideshow Presentations As a Pedagogical Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of application of this teaching model, there is currently some generalisation of the use of electronic slideshow presentations (ESP) in higher education classes, especially in the form of a PowerPoint slideshow or, more recently, in Prezi (Inoue-Smith, 2016;Naik, 2017;Chou, Chang, & Lu, 2015;Babbs & Ross, 2009;Tejada-Llacsa & Cahuana-Aparco, 2016;Worthington & Levasseur, 2015;Schoeman, 2013;Hill, Arford, Lubitow, & Smollin, 2012;Kosslyn, Kievit, Russell, & Shephard, 2012;Garrett, 2016), although there is no unanimity regarding the merits of this software (Inoue-Smith, 2016;Pros & Tarrida, 2017;Moulton et al, 2017). This article addresses presentations in both PowerPoint and Prezi, given that there seem to be no clear and undeniable advantages in terms of learning using one or the other program (Chou et al, 2015;Moulton et al, 2017), although there is a clear dominance of PowerPoint use (Garrett, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic Slideshow Presentations in the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Process

Ferreira

Santos²,

Serpa³

2018

JETS

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The use of electronic slide presentations (ESP), usually through PowerPoint or Prezi software, has become widespread in higher education and is part of the expectations and perceptions of both teachers and students of how a successful and quality class should be. Is this dissemination of ESP use justified by the pedagogical quality fostered in learning? While its use can help focus attention on the content of the subject during classes, there are also limitations in this process, both in the dimension of teaching, by the teacher, and in the dimension of learning, by the student. This paper seeks to provide a contribution to the debate on this topic, and the advantages and limitations in using ESP. It is concluded that there is a need, on the one hand, to define the use of ESP, by assaying their application, as well as, on the other hand, to simultaneously develop other pedagogical ways of teaching, whose articulation can make the student's role more active and pertinent, and enable the feedback to the student on the part of the teacher, so that it may be possible to regulate the teaching and learning process in a timely manner.

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“…The issue of distraction and multitasking in education is receiving increased attention, with conflicting results so far. Certain research suggests that laptop multitasking hinders learning for both users and nearby peers [28], and that providing slides to students can affect performance adversely [22,35]. On the other hand, researchers also argue that it is possible to take advantage of social media in the classroom by embracing multitasking, which students seem to able to effectively do in the classroom [20,36].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there is conflicting evidence on whether the use of mobile technologies in the classroom is positive (e.g., improving student participation) [33] or negative (e.g. distracting students due to multitasking) [28,35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Effects of Social Media in Co-located Classrooms: A Case Study Based on SpeakUp

Rodríguez‐Triana

Holzer

Prieto

et al. 2016

Adaptive and Adaptable Learning

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Abstract. The broad availability of mobile computing devices has prompted the apparition of social media applications that support teaching and learning. However, so far, there is conflicting evidence as to whether the benefits such applications provide in terms of engagement and interaction, outweigh their potential cost as a source of distraction. To help in clarifying these issues, the present paper presents a case study on the impact of using SpeakUp (an app aimed at promoting student participation through anonymous chatrooms) in an authentic face-to-face learning scenario. Concretely, we focus on the connection between SpeakUp and the student engagement, distraction, social interaction, and the influence of the teachers' style. Our findings highlight that SpeakUp favored students' engagement and social interaction, but they also point towards its limitations in keeping students communicating about content relevant to the course.

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To provide or not to provide course PowerPoint slides? The impact of instructor-provided slides upon student attendance and performance

Cited by 55 publications

References 32 publications

Does a presentation’s medium affect its message? PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentations

Does a presentation’s medium affect its message? PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentations

Electronic Slideshow Presentations in the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Process

Examining the Effects of Social Media in Co-located Classrooms: A Case Study Based on SpeakUp

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