I examined whether slide-construction within PowerPoint presentations facilitates (or impedes) learning and impacts student perceptions of course quality. To study this, PowerPoint in the fall 2013 semester included both text in bullet-point format and figures/graphs. In the spring 2014 semester, PowerPoint presentations were revised for the same class to contain no bulleted-text, only graphs/figures where appropriate. In consequence, students in the spring could not rely on the prescribed text, but needed to glean for themselves the pertinent information from class. Comparisons between test scores was made, as well as end-of-course evaluation ratings. Students performed better on the last multiple-choice test in the course when the text within PowerPoint was removed. Surprisingly, students rated the course with no text in the PowerPoint presentations higher on end-of-course evaluations. Therefore, instructors should not feel bound to fill PowerPoint slides with ample text. Instead, the instructor should be very cognizant about the construction of the slide and be strategic about how to incorporate the bulleted text within PowerPoint appropriately.
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