No difference in knowledge obtained from infographic or plain language summary of a Cochrane systematic review: three randomized controlled trials

Buljan, Ivan; Malički, Mario; Wager, Elizabeth; Puljak, Livia; Hren, Darko; Kellie, Frances J; West, Helen; Alfirević, Z̄arko; Marušić, Ana

doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2017.12.003

Cited by 72 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In three small trials (334 cases overall), Buljan et al (2017) compared a scientific abstract, a plain language summary, and an infographic as ways of presenting knowledge about the results of the Cochrane reviews (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews). The audience included doctors (111 intervention, 60 control), university students (46 intervention, 18 control) and lay consumers (45 intervention, 54 control).…”

Section: How To Best Summarise and Present Robust Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

What is the evidence on the best way to get evidence into use in education?

Gorard

See

Siddiqui

2020

Review of Education

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For decades there have been calls by concerned stakeholders to improve the quality of education research, and some progress has been made towards creating a more secure evidence base in some areas. More programmes and approaches that have a reasonable evidence base are now also being used in schools (but not in policy, and not necessarily because they have a reasonable evidence base). However, there has been no equivalent improvement in secure knowledge about how best to get that evidence into use, or even what difference it makes when such evidence is used. This paper looks at what little is already known about the different ways to get research evidence into use in education by summarising the results of a large-scale review of the literature. A total of 323 of the most relevant studies were looked at across all areas of public policy, and judged for quality and contribution. Very few (33) were of the appropriate design and quality needed to make robust causal claims about evidence-intouse, and even fewer of these concerned education. This means that despite over 20 years of modest improvement in research on what works in education policy and practice, the evidence on how best to deploy these findings is still very weak. We consider studies in terms of several issues, including whether they look at changes in user knowledge and behaviour, or student outcomes, and how evidence is best modified before use. Providing access to raw research evidence or even slightly simplified evidence is not generally an effective way of getting it used, even if that evidence is presented to users by knowledge-brokers, in short courses or similar. What is more likely to work for both policy and practice is the engineering of high quality evidence into a more usable format and presenting it actively or iteratively via a respected and trusted conduit, or through population measures such as legislation. Having the users actually do the research is another promising approach. Expecting each individual study they fund to have an impact is not the way forward, as this may encourage widespread use of ineffective or even harmful interventions. Publicly-funded users, including policy-makers, should be required to use evidence-led programmes from those libraries providing them and which are appropriate and relevant to their aims. Research funders should support these approaches, and help to build up libraries of successfully tested programmes. Researchers need to be scrupulous, looking at their new evidence in the context of what is already known and not looking to obtain 'impact' from single studies. More and better research is needed on the best routes for evidence-into-use. However, the improvements required of all parties are as much ethical in nature as they are technical or scientific.Keywords use of evidence, engineering of evidence, translation of evidence, research impact, knowledge transfer, robust evidence.

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Section: How To Best Summarise and Present Robust Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

What is the evidence on the best way to get evidence into use in education?

Gorard

See

Siddiqui

2020

Review of Education

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“…evidence about test accuracy) [7]. Regarding actual information extraction, one study found that university students more easily extract information from PLS compared to scientific abstracts of Cochrane systematic reviews, also reporting a better reading experience and higher user-friendliness [8]. Yet, a different study on university students' information extraction from Cochrane systematic reviews found neither a statistically significant difference between PLS and scientific abstracts for Cochrane systematic reviews with clear findings, nor for Cochrane systematic reviews with unclear findings [9].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To date, research on PLS has largely focused on the biomedical literature [6][7][8][9]. However, psychology also constitutes a relevant field for decision-making processes, in which misconceptions are widespread [10,11] and resistant to revision [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific abstracts and plain language summaries in psychology: A comparison based on readability indices

et al. 2020

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Findings from psychological research are usually difficult to interpret for non-experts. Yet, non-experts resort to psychological findings to inform their decisions (e.g., whether to seek a psychotherapeutic treatment or not). Thus, the communication of psychological research to non-expert audiences has received increasing attention over the last years. Plain language summaries (PLS) are abstracts of peer-reviewed journal articles that aim to explain the rationale, methods, findings, and interpretation of a scientific study to non-expert audiences using non-technical language. Unlike media articles or other forms of accessible research summaries, PLS are usually written by the authors of the respective journal article, ensuring that research content is accurately reproduced. In this study, we compared the readability of PLS and corresponding scientific abstracts in a sample of 103 journal articles from two psychological peer-reviewed journals. To assess readability, we calculated four readability indices that quantify text characteristics related to reading comprehension (e.g., word difficulty, sentence length). Analyses of variance revealed that PLS were easier to read than scientific abstracts. This effect emerged in both included journals and across all readability indices. There was only little evidence that this effect differed in magnitude between the included journals. In sum, this study shows that PLS may be an effective instrument for communicating psychological research to non-expert audiences. We discuss future research avenues to increase the quality of PLS and strengthen their role in science communication.

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“…The packaging waste problem can only be resolved if manufacturers, designers, and users actively play a role in protecting the environment in conjunction with government regulations and policies. Buljana et al [38] found that infographics gave people better reading experience; to this end, our goal in this study was to examine how infographics could be used to nurture pro-environmental attitudes, using postal packaging as the vehicle. While there are a number of definitions of infographic design in the domestic and international literature, the infographics dimensions of our questionnaire were based on factors identified by committee members of the Society for News Design (SND) in 2009 [39], which are: (1) attractiveness, (2) clarity, (3) simplicity, (4) flow, and (5) wordlessness.…”

Section: Literature On Infographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Investigation of the Effects of Infographics and Green Messages on the Environmental Attitudes of Taiwanese Online Shoppers

Wang

2018

Sustainability

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The rapid growth of e-commerce in Taiwan has increased the use of postal packaging; this contributes to the destruction of our environment, because it cannot be re-used, and may contain toxic substances. To address this understudied issue, we examined the effects of attaching green messages about environmental attitudes in the form of infographics on postal packaging. To improve our understanding of consumer preferences with respect to green messages, first, a questionnaire survey of online shoppers was conducted. Based on a statistical analysis of the results, it was found that green messages require excellent infographics in order to deliver environmental knowledge. Graphical information was considered superior to text-only information in the presentation of green messages and the visualization of green information by online shoppers. This result indicates that infographics have emerged as a better visual approach to deliver green messages. We hope that these findings will serve as a reference in the design of environmentally-friendly postal packaging.

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No difference in knowledge obtained from infographic or plain language summary of a Cochrane systematic review: three randomized controlled trials

Abstract: Although the infographic format was perceived as more enjoyable for reading, it was not better than a traditional, text-based PLS in the translation of knowledge about findings from a Cochrane systematic review.

Cited by 72 publications

References 22 publications

What is the evidence on the best way to get evidence into use in education?

What is the evidence on the best way to get evidence into use in education?

Scientific abstracts and plain language summaries in psychology: A comparison based on readability indices

An Investigation of the Effects of Infographics and Green Messages on the Environmental Attitudes of Taiwanese Online Shoppers

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