Alyxandria Stafford is a 20-year-old health administration major who said she falls asleep in class “all the time” during Powerpoint presentations. Her friend, 22-year-old Jamie Butler, said this is because some teachers just read off of the slides.
“Next thing you know they go from a high-pitched voice or an interesting tone to a ‘Hell-why’d-I-come-to-class-tone,’” Butler said.
While these slideshows are a big part of the college curriculum, whether or not they are actually beneficial to students is the focus of a 2012 study called “I'm Ambivalent about it: The Dilemmas of PowerPoint.” Published by the American Sociological Association, the study surveyed 384 surveyed students — 67 percent of these students reported that all or most of their instructors used PowerPoint presentations.
The study also found that PowerPoints alone don’t usually “measurably influence” students’ performance, and that the slideshows have a minimal effect on grades. However, “access to instructor-prepared, thorough class notes, in combination with PowerPoint,” was the crucial factor in improving student performance.
Carrie Taylor, 20, a biology junior from Brighton, Tennessee said she does not blame PowerPoints themselves for any boring lectures — she blames certain professors.
“I have many professors that are interactive while using PowerPoints in their lectures and I follow along very easily,” Taylor said. “However, when a professor seems disinterested in the topics being covered and just reads straight from the PowerPoint, I find myself struggling to stay awake.”
Taylor said that she has to study the information covered in class at a later time for twice as long.
Julie Johnson, instructor in the department of earth sciences at the U of M, said she uses PowerPoints in over 95 percent of lectures and labs as she said it is a useful tool for presenting multimedia information.
“As STEM faculty, students express the desire to be able to visualize the science,” Johnson said. “Videos, animations and pictures embedded in a PowerPoint presentation can help them do that.”
Still, “I'm Ambivalent about it: The Dilemmas of PowerPoint,” also found that while PowerPoint presentations are used for simplicity, they can lead to “over-simplicity” where students are “discouraged and even derailed from critical thinking.”
“In some respects, I can see how the lack of PowerPoint presentations would actually encourage students to pay better attention, take their own notes and attend class,” Johnson said.
Amaia Iratzoqui is an assistant professor in the department of criminology and criminal justice at the U of M. She said she uploads “skeletons” of her PowerPoints for students to fill out online. Iratzoqui said that her students are more motivated to come to class when they know they will be receiving information not available in the textbook.
“I reward attending students with questions on the test directly from the television, film and case study examples we discuss in class,” Iratzoqui said. “Students tend to do well on these questions if they have been present and engaged in class discussions.”
Krystin Kennedy is a 21-year-old criminology and criminal justice senior from Selmer, Tennessee. She said that she has learned a good deal from professors who use PowerPoints similarly to Iratzoqui, as long as they do not read straight from them the entire class period.
“In one class I learned really well from a professor who posted the PowerPoint slides online but left a lot blank,” Kennedy said. “We had to attend class to fill it out.”
