Laksmira K. Adhani’s (Graduate School of Design, Human Science International Program) paper has been accepted for Journal of Education and Learning; Vol. 13, No. 3 (2024).
Congratulations!
Author(s)
Laksmira K. Adhani, Gerard B. Remijn
Affiliation
Graduate School of Design , Human Science International Program
Manuscript Title
Students’ Evaluations of Multilingual Educational Slides and Their Visual Attention Distribution on Slides with Different Layouts
Abstract
Following efforts to promote internationalization at academic institutions, the use of multiple languages on educational slides (e.g., PowerPoint) has gradually increased. Multilingualism in learning has its advantages, but having multiple languages on educational slides can lead to crowding and cognitive overload. To investigate how students perceive multilingual slides, evaluations were gathered from Japanese (N = 20) and Indonesian students (N = 20) during an eye-tracking experiment in which their visual attention distribution on the slides was assessed. The slides contained text in three languages (English, Japanese, and Bahasa Indonesia) and were varied according to their layout. One group watched slides with text separated in blocks, with one text block for each language, while the other group watched slides consisting of a single, mixed block with each sentence describing the same information in a different language. The students’ evaluations showed that slides with a mixed layout were judged as more crowded and required more processing effort than slides with a separated-block layout. Furthermore, while the students dwelled their gaze significantly longer on text in their native language (either Bahasa Indonesia or Japanese) on separated-block slides, for slides with a mixed layout, the gaze patterns did not significantly differ between languages. The results of a comprehension quiz taken after the slide presentation, however, showed that students performed better after having watched the slides with the mixed layout. Thus, although judged as more crowded and requiring a wider attention distribution, slides with a mixed layout may be preferable in multilingual education.
Journal name
Journal of Education and Learning; Vol. 13, No. 3; 2024 ISSN 1927-5250
Relevant SDGs
SDGs 4: Quality Education
Comments
More research is needed to remedy the limitations of the present study. The topics and the quiz questions used here would benefit rote learning, and this does not dovetail with typical learning in higher education. Another major issue is that the slide presentation was short (90 s), without pictures, video, or formulas, colorful texts, and – most importantly – without narration or explanation by a teacher. In order to ascertain that the students watched the slides, no other visual or auditory information was given that would usually be present in the classroom, including other students and the whole lecture experience. Further investigations are needed to test how the text layout of multilingual educational slides affects learning in the presence of such other, realistic audiovisual sources. Until then, the main practical implication of the present study is that the use of multilingual slides in a mixed, line-by-line layout according to language, although visually crowded, seems to support content memorization.
