Exposing college students to a topic-relevant 90-second external stimulus before a lecture significantly improves immediate information retention compared with a neutral control¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3 · i1 small
Currency · newest study 2013 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i1 Students exposed to a 90-second external stimulus before a lecture retained significantly more lecture information than students exposed to roll call, with a small-to-medium effect size (Cohen's d = 0.35). → Rosegard 2013

Evidence¶

Rosegard 2013¶

Rosegard, E., & Wilson, J. (2013). Capturing students' attention: An empirical study. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol. 13, No. 5, December 2013. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1017063

q3 · i1 · causal · r2

Randomized experiment over four years with 846 students in 16 sections of a general education course at a large urban university; the arousal group (n=434) heard a poem, game, or puzzle, the control group (n=412) heard roll call, then both heard the same 30-minute lecture and took a 15-point exam. The t-test found "a significant difference in exam scores measuring information retention" between the arousal (M=13.36) and no-arousal (M=12.85) conditions. The article reports Cohen's d = 0.35, between small (.2) and medium (.5).

"An independent-samples t-test found a significant difference in exam scores measuring information retention between arousal (M=13.36, SD=1.5) and no-arousal (M=12.85, SD=1.4) conditions; t (844)=5.20, p < .001."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Assignment to the arousal condition correlates significantly but weakly with exam score (r = 0.176) in a correlation matrix of 846 students — related
• The retention advantage of a pre-lecture external stimulus does not differ significantly by stimulus type (poem, game, or puzzle) — related
• Humorous video clips improve Iranian undergraduate EFL learners' idiom achievement compared with conventional instruction without clips — related
• Spanish B1 learners taught equivocal words through joke-telling retained more vocabulary on a two-week delayed post-test than learners taught the same items conventionally — related
• Advanced EFL learners exposed to TV-series video clips retained formulaic sequences at a significantly higher rate than learners receiving explicit instruction only — related
• Prenatal synchronous multisensory exposure enhances learning and memory for a mother's call in quail embryos — related
• RT-exposed underachievers earned significantly higher English learning achievement grades than control-group peers after remedial instruction — related