Effects of Teaching Presentation Methods and Visual and Auditory Working Memory Capacity on Young Children’s Learning Effectiveness

Abstract

Objectives: This study investigates the effects of teaching material presentation methods and young children's visual and auditory working memory capacity on their learning effectiveness. It also suggests effective instructional design and teaching-learning methods suitable for children’s information processing characteristics.Methods: Participants included 86 five-year-old children enrolled in kindergartens in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, and Daejeon. Three categories of teaching materials with different presentation methods were created. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the category groups, and participated in learning activities. After the activities, learning effectiveness, working memory, and attention were measured. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0.Results: Results indicated that children’s learning effectiveness differed according to the teaching material presentation method. Higher learning effectiveness was observed when auditory and visual information was presented concurrently rather than sequentially, but learning was not affected by the sequential order. The groups with larger auditory working memory capacity and larger visual working memory capacity achieved higher learning effectiveness than did their respective counterparts. Additionally, learning effectiveness was greater for children with larger auditory working memory capacity when presented with auditory information before visual, and for those with larger visual working memory capacity when presented with visual information before auditory.Conclusion: The study results enhance foundational knowledge related to individual differences in young children's visual and auditory information processing abilities. Moreover, this study has practical implications for developing instructional materials and proposals suitable for young children’s individual information processing characteristics.