Disfluency Meets Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning: Does Harder‐to‐Read Mean Better‐to‐Understand?

Abstract

In a series of four experiments, we examined the impact of disfluency in multimedia learning by testing contrasting predictions derived from disfluency theory and cognitive load theory against each other. Would a less legible text be beneficial to learning when accompanied by pictures, and what would be the role of less legible pictures? Students (N = 308) learned with text and pictures that were either easy-to-read (i.e., fluent) or harder-to-read (i.e., disfluent) about how a toilet flush works (Experiments 1-3) and about how lightning develops (Experiment 4). In line with disfluency theory, a disfluent text led to better performance in the transfer test and to more invested mental effort in Experiment 1. However, these beneficial effects could not be replicated in Experiments 2, 3, and 4, leaving open questions regarding the stability and generalizability of the disfluency effect, and thus raising concerns regarding its impact for educational practice.

The effect of disfluency on mind wandering during text comprehension

“…The fact that we did not observe a significant direct effect of disfluency on text comprehension is in line with other recent findings (Eitel & Kühl, 2016;Eitel et al, 2014;Lehmann et al, 2016;Rummer et al, 2016;Strukelj et al, 2016). However, we have shown that disfluency has an indirect effect on text comprehension by reducing MW, thereby elucidating one mechanism by which disfluency influences the reading process.…”

Effects of disfluency on cognitive and metacognitive processes and outcomes

“…pagewanted=all&_r=0). However, to the best of our knowledge, only a few published studies were able to confirm the basic effect in conceptual replications (French et al 2013;Sungkhasettee et al 2011;Weltman and Eakin 2014) whereas other studies found null effects or even negative effects of degraded text fonts on learning outcomes (e.g., Eitel et al 2014;Miele et al 2013;Yue et al 2013). Given the high number of studies citing the DiemandYauman et al article, the lack of published studies replicating the original effect is surprising.…”

“…Eitel et al (2014) conducted four experiments and found a positive disfluency effect only in the first of four experiments, so that the overall pattern of results was clearly in favor of a null effect of disfluency (shown by Bayesian analysis). Interestingly, though, results for reported mental effort paralleled results for performance in the studies of Eitel et al (2014). Only in the first of four experiments, more mental effort was reported for disfluent texts, suggesting a relation between mental effort and performance.…”

“…It comprises studies on disfluency besides and within this special issue. In this review, most of the studies manipulated the perceptual fluency of written text by using fonts that are either easy or harder to read (e.g., Diemand-Yauman et al 2011), by printing text in either bigger or smaller fonts (e.g., Rhodes and Castel 2008), or by presenting text in either a clear or a distorted or blurred manner (e.g., Eitel et al 2014;Yue et al 2013). However, it is important to note that this is not a comprehensive review of disfluency research, but rather serves as an introduction to frame and motivate the studies of this special issue (summarized in Table 1).…”

Instructor Fluency Correlates with Students’ Ratings of Their Learning and Their Instructor in an Actual Course

“…Although the experience of fluency in learning situations correlates with a sense (or the explicit judgment) that information has been easily acquired, it is not always correlated with actual learning (e.g., Bertsch, Pesta, Wiscott, & McDaniel, 2007;Bjork, 1994;Carpenter et al, 2013;Carpenter, Mickes, Rahman, & Fernandez, 2016;Eitel, Kuhl, Scheiter, & Gerjets, 2014;Hirshman & Bjork, 1988;Leutner, Leopold, & Sumfleth, 2009;Rhodes & Castel, 2008;Sanchez & Khan, 2016;Slamecka & Graf, 1978;Yue, Castel, & Bjork, 2013). For this reason, if students base metacognitive evaluations of their learning on how fluently or easily they processed learning materials-but that experience of fluency is not correlated with their actual learning-then their self-assessments of their learning will be inaccurate.…”