The effect of presentation software on student interaction and retention during higher education lectures

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was a difference in duration or frequency of verbal interaction among students exposed to a lecture involving PowerPoint (listing of main points brought up one by one) versus two traditional lecture formats: lecture with overhead transparencies (of main points uncovered one by one) and lecture with no presentation aids. This study also examined whether there was a difference in student recall of information after a lecture with PowerPoint versus the two traditional lecture formats (lecture with overhead transparencies and lecture without visual aids. The results were:; The method of material presentation, lectures with PowerPoint slides, overhead transparencies, and without presentation aids, does not affect instructor/student verbal interaction in a classroom. Two separate Friedman Two-Way Analysis of Variance by Ranks tests were conducted: one on the frequency of student verbal interactions and one on the duration of student verbal interactions. Results of analysis indicated that there were no significant differences in student verbal interactions among the three different lecture formats.; The method of material presentation does affect students' retention of the information presented as measured by a multiple-choice quiz over lecture content. The one-way Repeated Measures ANOVA was conducted on students' quiz scores. Results of analysis indicated that there was significant difference, (F (2, 140) = 13.39, p < .001). Lectures presented by PowerPoint slides were more effective in student retention than the other two formats: lecture with overhead transparencies and lecture without visual aids.