| You want more rigourous evidence that Powerpoint contributes to dumbing down? Ok, read this. | | Date Created: 04 Apr, 2007, 04:49 PM |
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Can I spend a moment with you tooting my own horn?
Ok, so bear with me a moment, since I don't usually get in too many "I told you so's".
But if you're a regular reader of this blog, and especially like the blog entries on Keynote versus Powerpoint, you'll know that I advocate a particular style of slide show presentation. Which you will see described partially in a post below where I hold up to scrutiny the slideshare.net effort to locate the (alleged) "world's best presentation" sponsored by Microsoft (with shows made with Keynote to be uploaded in PDF form just to give an extra advantage to Powerpoint. Who me? Cynical?)
You will have gathered by much of what I have to say here that I base my own presentations, as well the training in presentation skills I do, on evidence of how human beings learn, share knowledge, and influence and persuade. It combines an understanding of perceptual systems, cognitive neuroscience, knowledge management, and media studies.
This knowledge base comes from more than twenty years as a psychologist, many years in the media (radio, print, TV, blogs and podcasts), and a recent graduate in Knowledge Management studies.
Ok, enough with the credentials, the important thing to mention is that it's hard to beat a combination of rigorous scientific evaluation of what works and what doesn't when presenting to groups, together with years of practical experience actually doing, and not just lecturing about, presentations.
Let's face it: Any one who is going to spend their career as a Knowledge Worker will sooner or later have to present to others, whether it be small groups or large; with or without supportive technologies; and to peers, betters (or prospecive purchasers), or those needing a technical subject demystified.
So the sooner we can pull together relevant data that supports how best to present complex ideas the better. And that means giving Powerpoint-based presentations some much needed scrutiny, since I suspect 99% of them are garbage, and this includes those at the highest level of scientific endeavour.
This has nothing to do with content. It's to do with how best to convey ideas and thoughts in a manner that is memorable and actually helps audiences learn something they can use.
I'm not speaking of motivational speakers here who are invited to rev up audiences and give lunchtime seminars. Almost to a person, I think you'll find they eschew Powerpoint and use themselves solely as the purveyor of what's to be learnt. Those who do this for a living are usually very good at what they do, and worthy of learning from, but they are also highly original and not an easy act to emulate.
I'm more speaking of your teaching institutes, conferences, business presentations, briefings and the like where the audience is vitally interested in the content, and not necessarily looking for emotional satisfaction. They want to take away with them new information they wish to apply. Using an understanding of human emotional regulation is helpful however.
So I was delighted to see in today's Australian mainstream media a report of research undertaken in New South Wales which offers some evidence of what I and others, like my mate Garr Reynolds, Richard Mayer, Cliff Atkinson and have been saying and writing for some time. |
 In today's Fairfax media, Anna Petty (Education editor) writes of recent research undertaken at the University of NSW which she claims ought to spell the death of Powerpoint. Frankly, as you'll see, it's somewhat overdramatised, but perhaps a few people will sit up and pay attention. You can see how the article was illustrated, top of entry.
The main claim she makes:
"It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time.
The Australian researchers who made the findings may have pronounced the death of the PowerPoint presentation."
Told you it was a little dramatic. Let's continue anyway:
"Pioneered at the University of NSW, the research shows the human brain processes and retains more information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same time."
Now I'm going to guess that some of you will disagree with that, especially because it seems to contradict how you deal with slides: you read them out.
But there is research to back up the principle of competing channels such that if you speak your ideas, then use a word or illustration to reinforce what you've said, learning is enhanced. But the timing, and amount, are crucial. Too much written stuff and your attention to the spoken word is interfered with.
More:
"The findings show there are limits on the brain's capacity to process and retain information in short-term memory.
John Sweller, from the university's faculty of education, developed the "cognitive load theory".
"The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster," Professor Sweller said. "It should be ditched."
"It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."
The original concept of overwhelming short term memory was developed by George Miller in 1956. But Sweller have been using the term "cognitive load" for many years, and written many articles and books on the subject.
More of the Fairfax report on Sweller's ideas on cognitive load:
"The working memory was only effective in juggling two or three tasks at the same time, retaining them for a few seconds. When too many mental tasks were taken on some things were forgotten."
Well, that's a good example of simplified Bubba psychology (things your grandmother could have told you before you got that Ph.D), so I'm going to refer you to the original research that formed the basis of the Fairfax report pronouncing the death of (lousy) Powerpoint, or at least its unthinking and mass-reproduced cognitive style.
You can find a link here and for a U/NSW media release, from which came the Fairfax report, go here. It covers a paper Prof. Sweller gave last weekend at an international conference held in Sydney, located here. You can download a pdf of the conference presentation speakers and schedule here, and note that Powerpoint itself is actually not mentioned by name, but one can imagine may have been alluded to (nay, dissed!) quite a few times that weekend!
Wouldn't it be fun to get a hold of Sweller's slides, if he used them, and enter them in slideshare.net's competition? That would throw a cat amongst the pigeons. His hour long keynote was entitled, The Evolution of Cognitive Load Theory. |
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