Reading a Story: Different Degrees of Learning in Different Learning Environments.

Anna Maria Giannini,Pierluigi Cordellieri,Laura Piccardi

doi:10.3389/fphar.2017.00701

Anna Maria Giannini, Pierluigi Cordellieri + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2017.00701

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Abstract

The learning environment in which material is acquired may produce differences in delayed recall and in the elements that individuals focus on. These differences may appear even during development. In the present study, we compared three different learning environments in 450 normally developing 7-year-old children subdivided into three groups according to the type of learning environment. Specifically, children were asked to learn the same material shown in three different learning environments: reading illustrated books (TB); interacting with the same text displayed on a PC monitor and enriched with interactive activities (PC-IA); reading the same text on a PC monitor but not enriched with interactive narratives (PC-NoIA). Our results demonstrated that TB and PC-NoIA elicited better verbal memory recall. In contrast, PC-IA and PC-NoIA produced higher scores for visuo-spatial memory, enhancing memory for spatial relations, positions and colors with respect to TB. Interestingly, only TB seemed to produce a deeper comprehension of the story’s moral. Our results indicated that PC-IA offered a different type of learning that favored visual details. In this sense, interactive activities demonstrate certain limitations, probably due to information overabundance, emotional mobilization, emphasis on images and effort exerted in interactive activities. Thus, interactive activities, although entertaining, act as disruptive elements which interfere with verbal memory and deep moral comprehension.

Highlights

Narrative language is a complex form of discourse that conveys information related to action, narrated events, and the internal states of the characters interacting in the story
ANOVA showed that the three learning environments produced significant differences in verbal memory recall (F2,441 = 265.37; p < 0.001; η2p = 0.54; observed power = 0.99)
Our main aim was to investigate differences in incidental learning produced by different learning environments (TB, PC-NoIA, and PC monitor and enriched with interactive activities (PC-IA))

Summary

Introduction

Narrative language is a complex form of discourse that conveys information related to action, narrated events, and the internal states of the characters interacting in the story. Narrative comprehension involves many perceptual and cognitive sub-processes, including perceiving individual words, parsing sentences, and understanding the relationships between characters (Wehbe et al, 2014). When a child reports events and facts from a story, he/she uses specific words that refer to internal states such as perceptions, emotions, and Different Memories in Different Learning Environments desires; very often, the child puts him/herself in the shoes of the main character (Baumgartner and Devescovi, 2001; Rollo, 2007; D’Amico et al, 2008). Critical approaches focus on the motivational aspects of multimedia procedures, which involve the implicit or explicit invitation to browse, explore and extend information, as well as to master the activities proposed by a computer. Kashihara et al (2000) found that multimedia learners who are confronted with motivational elements may be distracted from information processing, with consequences for cognitive learning

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