A study on the efficacy of PowerPoint for writing instruction

Abstract

The use of PowerPoint in the classroom appears to be embraced by instructors at institutions nationwide. Instructors are spending hours in the preparation of PowerPoint presentations to accompany lecture material. Similarly, textbook companies are approaching instructors to design textbook-specific slide shows to enhance the marketability of their textbooks. While the use of PowerPoint and multimedia in the classroom has significantly increased globally in recent years (Connor and Wong 2003; Bartsch and Cobern 2004), few studies have systematically investigated its impact on student learning. The relationship between PowerPoint and writing instructions remains an open question as well. Keeping this gap in existing literature, this study assessed the effects of accompanying lectures with PowerPoint presentations on students test performance related to effective writing. This study has been conducted using a true experimental research design (before and after with control group experimental design). Data were collected using an achievement test. The subjects of this study were undergraduate first year engineering students from two AICTE approved colleges of Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan. The sample size was 120 engineering students. The researcher used quantitative approach to compare the test scores of two groups. Mean, variance and standard deviation were used for descriptive statistics. Hypotheses were tested using an independent sample t test and paired sample t-test. The findings of this investigation revealed the comparative effectiveness of PowerPoint presentation to traditional lecture instruction. Student achievement was essentially high when taught using the PowerPoint presentation as compared to the traditional lecture strategy.