The Effect Of Bullet Points On Junior School Students’Learning

Bullet point is the most common stimuli-presenting mode in PowerPoint presentation. It was defined as started with points, stars, and arrows and so on, and followed with the content that needs to be present on the screen. Researchers argue that whether the bullet points can facilitate learning or not. On the basis of the existing related studies, theories and the suggestions on how to use bullet points in multimedia, two experiments were conducted in this study.In experiment1, we explored the effectiveness of bullet points and generalization by recall. The experiment is a2(bullet points:use bullet points and not) x2(generalization:generalize or not) between-participants design. The material is the common knowledge concerning psychology that was selected from The Psychology written for the junior high school students (there are24items in total).64participants (students of grade1, in junior school) join in the experiment. The results showed as follows:bullet points mode facilitate learning; the materiel presented on the screen was generalization can facilitate learning.In experiment2, we explored the quantity (how many bullet points in a slide) and the stimuli-presenting mode (whether use common animation) of bullet points by recall. The experiment is a2(quantity of bullet points:4items,8items)×2(stimuli-presenting mode:one item at a time, all item at one time) between participants design. The material is the knowledge of memory and forgetting that was selected from The Psychology written for the junior high school students (there are20items in total).62participants (students of grade1, in junior school) join in the experiment. The results showed as follows:quantity of bullet points did not significantly affect learning; stimuli-presenting mode of bullet points significantly affects learning; one item at a time has a better recall.