Poster #86 - Design Optimization: Exploration of Book Design and its Effect on Children’s Attention, Decoding, and Comprehension

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Reading is a critical skill children must acquire as it serves as a gateway for future learning. Learning to read is a challenging task that may be compounded by poor attention regulation. Children often struggle to stay on-task and inhibit irrelevant information. One design feature of beginning reader books that may be problematic for attention regulation is lack of spatial separation between text and illustrations: when text and illustrations are in close proximity, children make frequent gaze shifts away from the text and gaze shifts are negatively related to decoding (Godwin et al., 2017). Design of instructional reading materials can be optimized to reduce attentional demands and minimize extraneous cognitive load. We conduct a qualitative analysis identifying common design features of beginning reader books (Study 1). We then examine experimentally whether these design choices tax attention--hindering decoding and comprehension (Study 2).
Study 1: Twenty-two beginning reader books were analyzed to identify common design elements. Book selection occurred with guidance of a librarian who identified appropriate books; a pseudo-random subset was selected ensuring topic variety and representation of multiple (11) publishers. For each page, coders rated aspects of the book design including: features of the illustrations (e.g., color, alignment, irrelevant details), text (location, enhancements), and general design (layout, use of white space, borders); Table 1. For every book, the percentage of pages in each category-level was calculated, and means reported. Inter-rater reliability was established prior to the study (Cohen’s kappa=.77).
Illustrations in beginning reader books are very colorful: 98% of a book’s pages include illustrations containing five or more colors. Despite general alignment between illustrations and text, most (87%) pages include illustrations containing some or several irrelevant visual details (i.e., components irrelevant to the storyline). White space was not utilized on 32% of pages. Text location varied: common locations include text centered at the top (32%) of the page and multiple locations (24%). Text was frequently embedded within the illustration itself (34%). Techniques to enhance text saliency (e.g., fading, text-boxes) were rarely seen (3%).
Results indicate placing colorful illustrations in close proximity to text is a common design choice; however, this layout may unintentionally create attentional competition between these sources of information hampering decoding and comprehension. Study 2 examines this possibility and explores whether increasing spatial separation is beneficial.
Study 2: First- and second-graders read-aloud half of a commercially available book in the standard layout (text and illustrations in close proximity as designed by the publisher) and half in a Partially-Separated layout (text presented above the illustration); Figure 1. Presentation order (Standard or Partially-Separated first) was counterbalanced. Comprehension was assessed by asking participants to retell the story and answer questions about key events. Decoding accuracy was also recorded. An eyetracker indexed attention to text and gaze shifts away from text. Data collection is in progress (N=7); numerical trends suggest partially-separating text and illustrations may enhance comprehension (Story Questions) compared to the Standard layout (M=76%, M=67% respectively). This work will inform efforts to create optimized instructional materials to benefit children’s learning.

Authors

• Karrie E Godwin, Kent State University
  Presenting Author

• Grace Murray, Kent State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachael D Todaro, Kent State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cassondra Eng, Carnegie Mellon University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Aimee A. Wildrick, Kent State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anna Fisher, Carnegie Mellon University
  Non-Presenting Author