The Effects Of Gesture And Prior Knowledge On Ability To Learn A Complex Statistical Concept
Location
SU 103
Department
Psychology
Abstract
It has been shown that gesture included with speech may have an impact on the amount learned by an individual. It has also been found that the degree of background knowledge on new material may play a role in the amount a person will learn. The effect of amount of background knowledge and the ability to learn with and without gestures has not been studied before. The aim of this study is to identify whether there is a difference between an upper and lower level statistics course’s ability to learn a complex statistical analysis with and without gesture. This will contain a pre and post-test questionnaire with questions regarding what the students learned after watching a video that teaches the concepts of a complex statistical analysis. We expect to see a greater difference in pre and post-test scores in the upper level statistics course that included gesture. The study at hand is important because it has the potential to provide a low-budget solution to improving learning in an academic environment. This could have an effect on schools by then leaving room for educational budgeting, which can be used to purchase tools to facilitate teaching for the instructors. As mentioned, there is the potential to improve learning in individuals through incorporating gesture along with speech to facilitate it. The implementation of gesture in the academic environment will provide an opportunity for students who have a higher dependency on visual learning to hopefully come to a similar level to their peers. We also expect to see a greater increase from the upper level statistics course, and this will provide insight to whether prior knowledge plays a role in learning. If this is the case, the findings can be implemented on when we decide to begin teaching lessons based on their prior knowledge. The information derived from the study may serve as an avenue to great educational advances in the future.
The Effects Of Gesture And Prior Knowledge On Ability To Learn A Complex Statistical Concept
SU 103
It has been shown that gesture included with speech may have an impact on the amount learned by an individual. It has also been found that the degree of background knowledge on new material may play a role in the amount a person will learn. The effect of amount of background knowledge and the ability to learn with and without gestures has not been studied before. The aim of this study is to identify whether there is a difference between an upper and lower level statistics course’s ability to learn a complex statistical analysis with and without gesture. This will contain a pre and post-test questionnaire with questions regarding what the students learned after watching a video that teaches the concepts of a complex statistical analysis. We expect to see a greater difference in pre and post-test scores in the upper level statistics course that included gesture. The study at hand is important because it has the potential to provide a low-budget solution to improving learning in an academic environment. This could have an effect on schools by then leaving room for educational budgeting, which can be used to purchase tools to facilitate teaching for the instructors. As mentioned, there is the potential to improve learning in individuals through incorporating gesture along with speech to facilitate it. The implementation of gesture in the academic environment will provide an opportunity for students who have a higher dependency on visual learning to hopefully come to a similar level to their peers. We also expect to see a greater increase from the upper level statistics course, and this will provide insight to whether prior knowledge plays a role in learning. If this is the case, the findings can be implemented on when we decide to begin teaching lessons based on their prior knowledge. The information derived from the study may serve as an avenue to great educational advances in the future.
Comments
Linda Rueckert is the faculty sponsor of this project.