Activities per year
Abstract
Numerious studies in cognitive psychology suggest that difficulties are often desirable for learning. There is, however, a recent controvery on whether presenting textual materials in difficult-to-read fonts is also desirable. Up to date, little research on this matter has been conducted with children. We examined the effect of smaller-than-standard fonts, that are more difficult to read, on children's reading comprehension, reading time, and metacomprehension judgments, and whether children's age moderates these effects. Second and fifth graders read four short age-appropriate texts presented either in a standard font size for that grade or in a smaller-than-standard font, they then judged their comprehension, and completed a comprehension test. Results revealed that small fonts enhanced fifth graders' comprehension, but impaired second graders' comprehension. Therefore, a small font is a desirable difficulty for fifth graders but an undesirable difficulty for second graders. Second graders had longer reading time when reading in standard (vs. smaller) font, but fifth graders' reading time was not affected by font size. Finally, fifth graders did not appreciate the benefits of a small font, and the small font improved metacomprehension accuracy. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed.
Original language | American English |
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State | Published - 2019 |
Event | European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction Conference - European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, Aachen, Germany Duration: 12 Aug 2019 → 16 Aug 2019 https://www.earli.org/EARLI2019 (Website) |
Conference
Conference | European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction Conference |
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Country/Territory | Germany |
City | Aachen |
Period | 12/08/19 → 16/08/19 |
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Dive into the research topics of 'The effect of font size on children's reading time, comprehension and meta-comprehension.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Activities
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European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction Conference
Halamish, V. (Participation - Conference participant)
12 Aug 2019 → 16 Aug 2019Activity: Participating in or organizing an event › Organizing a conference, workshop, ...