a study about reading bar graphs<\/a>.<\/p>\nThis research team wanted to know if “decorated” bar graphs make learning harder for students in kindergarten, and in 1st and 2nd grade.<\/p>\n
So, if a bar graph shows the number of gloves in the lost and found box each week, should the bar representing that number…<\/p>\n
Be decorated with little glove icons?<\/p>\n
Or, should it be filled in with stripes?<\/p>\n
How about dots?<\/p>\n
This study in fact incorporates four separate experiments; the researchers keep repeating their basic paradigm and modifying a variable or two. For this reason, they can measure quite precisely the problems and the factors that cause them.<\/p>\n
And — as you remember — they’re working with students in three different grades. So: they’ve got LOTS of data to report…<\/p>\n
The Headlines, Please…<\/h2>\n
Rather than over-decorate this blog post with a granular description, I’ll hit a few telling highlights.<\/p>\n
First<\/strong>: iconic decorations inhibit learning.<\/p>\nThat is: little gloves on the bar graph made it harder for students to learn to read those graphs correctly.<\/p>\n
Honestly, this result doesn’t surprise me. Gloves are concrete and familiar, whereas bar graphs represent more abstract concepts. No wonder the little tykes get confused.<\/p>\n
Second<\/strong>: stripes and dots also inhibit learning.<\/p>\nOnce again, the students tend to count the objects contained within<\/em> the bar — even little dots! — instead of the observing the\u00a0height<\/em> of the bar<\/p>\nThis finding did surprise me a bit more. I wasn’t surprised that young learners focus on concrete objects (gloves, trees), but am intrigued to discover they also want to count abstract objects (lines, dots) within the bar.<\/p>\n
Third<\/strong>: age matters.<\/p>\nThat is: 1st graders did better than kindergarteners. And, 2nd graders better than first graders.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, this result makes good sense. As we get older, we get better at understanding more abstract concepts, and at controlling attention.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, this finding points to an unfortunate irony. Our profession tends to emphasize decoration in classrooms for younger students.<\/em><\/p>\nIn other words: we decorate<\/strong> most<\/strong> where decoration might do the most harm<\/strong>! (As a high-school teacher, I never got any instructions about decoration, and was never evaluated on it.)<\/p>\nIn Brief<\/h2>\n
We teachers certainly might be tempted to make our environments as welcoming — even festive! — as possible.<\/p>\n
And yet, we’ve got a larger (and larger) pool of research pointing out the distraction<\/em> in all that decoration<\/em>.<\/p>\nThis concern goes beyond — say — adorable dolphin photos on the wall, or uplifting quotations on waterfall posters.<\/p>\n
In this one study, something as seemingly-harmless as dots in a bar graph can interfere with our students learning.<\/p>\n
When it comes to decorating — even worksheets and handouts — we should keep the focus on the learning.<\/p>\n
\nFisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: When too much of a good thing may be bad.\u00a0Psychological science<\/i>,\u00a025<\/i>(7), 1362-1370.<\/p>\n
Godwin, K. E., Leroux, A. J., Seltman, H., Scupelli, P., & Fisher, A. V. (2022). Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children\u2019s Attention.\u00a0Cognitive Science<\/i>,\u00a046<\/i>(2), e13093.<\/p>\n
Kaminski, J. A., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2013). Extraneous perceptual information interferes with children’s acquisition of mathematical knowledge.\u00a0Journal of Educational Psychology<\/i>,\u00a0105<\/i>(2), 351.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recent research has raised questions about classroom decoration. In this post, our blogger wonders about decorating HANDOUTS: Teachers regularly face competing goals. For instance: On the one hand — obviously — we want our students to learn. And, on the other hand, we equally obviously want them to feel safe, comfortable, at home. To accomplish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-7767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7769,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767\/revisions\/7769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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