Primary pupils’ recall of interactive storybooks on CD‐ROM: inconsiderate interactive features and forgetting

Abstract

The use of interactive storybooks in the primary classroom has the potential to facilitate pupils' reading, in small groups or individually. However, critics have expressed concern at the exposure of pupils to interactive storybooks. In particular, concern has been expressed that the interactive animations and sound effects in such storybooks may adversely affect pupils' responses to the written text. These small scale studies examined whether story recall of small groups of pupils, respectively in Year 5 and Year 4, was affected by the provision of cued animations and sound effects. Consideration of the outcomes of both studies indicates that access to cued animations and sound effects did have adverse effects on pupils' story recall. IntroductionInteractive storybooks, for the purpose of these studies, conform to the definition of 'real' books, provided by Tann (1991), as:

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“…Additionally, while some investigators found multimedia elements distracting, no researchers have investigated whether stories that specifically teach behaviors can be enhanced by including demonstrations within the story [75]. Finally, because none of the studies was longitudinal, children's understanding and retention of materials presented in electronic form cannot be evaluated beyond the short-term scope of the studies [24].…”

“…A similar study was later done with American children [75]. First, children were presented with one plain-text, online storybook and then another with added multimedia enhancement [75]. The children were then tested regarding story content [75].…”

“…One 2002 study conducted in the Netherlands surveyed kindergarten children (n=48) to determine how much of a book they would read if the books provided varying levels of interactive material [74]. A similar study was later done with American children [75]. First, children were presented with one plain-text, online storybook and then another with added multimedia enhancement [75].…”

“…The children were then tested regarding story content [75]. Both studies found that children with access to added multimedia elements scored lower on the follow-up tests and revealed levels of distraction not observed in children reviewing stories with no multimedia enhancements [74,75].…”

“…In learning story material, children are likely to skip over narratives to progress to interactive features, thus missing a large portion of the information presented [74,75].…”