Can Small Changes Matter? Reducing Cognitive Load in Educational Media Supports Low-Income Preschoolers' Vocabulary Learning

Autor/inn/en	Samudra, Preeti G.; Wong, Kevin M.; Neuman, Susan B.
Titel	Can Small Changes Matter? Reducing Cognitive Load in Educational Media Supports Low-Income Preschoolers' Vocabulary Learning
Quelle	In: Journal of Educational Psychology, 114 (2022) 6, S.1277-1291 (15 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Samudra, Preeti G.) ORCID (Wong, Kevin M.) ORCID (Neuman, Susan B.) Weitere Informationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0022-0663
DOI	10.1037/edu0000742
Schlagwörter	Preschool Children; Cues; Attention; Vocabulary Development; Low Income Students; Receptive Language; Expressive Language; Video Technology; Time; Cognitive Processes; Difficulty Level; Educational Media; Urban Areas; Federal Programs; Social Services; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Stichwort; Aufmerksamkeit; Wortschatzarbeit; Rezeptive Kommunikationsfähigkeit; Zeit; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Schwierigkeitsgrad; Bildungsmittel; Unterrichtsmedien; Urban area; Stadtregion; Social service; Soziale Dienstleistung; Soziale Dienste
Abstract	Preschoolers can learn vocabulary from educational videos, but children from low-income backgrounds often do not learn as effectively as their higher income peers. We investigated whether adding attention-directing cues to media (Study 1) and slowing the pacing of media (Study 2) supported vocabulary learning for preschoolers from low-income homes. We hypothesized that children would benefit from the reduced top-down processing demands in Study 1 (N = 80), and from the additional processing time in Study 2 (N = 70). Both studies utilized counterbalanced within-subjects designs with each child participating in both the experimental (added cues or slowed pacing) and control condition. Results showed that children performed better on receptive vocabulary posttests when attention cues were added (Study 1) and when the pacing was slower (Study 2) compared with the controls, though effects sizes were small. There were no differences by condition for expressive vocabulary. In Study 2 (slower pacing), we measured visual attention to videos using eye-tracking to see if the slow pacing could sustain children's attention to the video as effectively as the standard pacing. No differences in attention were observed between the slower and standard paced videos. However, attention predicted learning more strongly in the standard paced videos than the slower paced videos, suggesting that visual attention was less of a limiting factor for learning in the slower paced videos. Overall, findings suggest that reducing the cognitive load of educational media can be beneficial for vocabulary learning for children from low-income homes. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01