Hard-to-Read Fonts Improve Learning

arkenian writes "Difficult-to-read fonts make for better learning, according to scientists. The finding is about to be published in the international journal Cognition. Researchers at Princeton University employed volunteers to learn made-up information about different types of aliens — and found that those reading harder fonts recalled more when tested 15 minutes later. The article goes on to note a second test in a real school environment: 'Keen to see if their findings actually worked in practice, the Princeton University team then tested their results on 222 students aged between 15 and 18 at a secondary school in Chesterfield, Ohio.'... 'Students given the harder-to-read materials scored higher in their classroom assessments than those in the control group. This was the case across a range of subjects — from English, to Physics to History.'"

Comments

Not a surprise

[trifish]

Instead of skimming, you are forced to actually read every word.

Skimming is for getting an idea of what to expect to learn. Reading is for the actual learning.

Re:Comic Times New Roman, anyone?

[Kilrah_il]

Because it seems counter-intuitive, I really liked the following sentence:

...Keen to see if their findings actually worked in practice..."

Often times we see studies done in labs and, because it doesn't look reasonable to us, we quickly dismiss it by saying "Well, it would never work in real life." Here, at least, they tried it in real life. It's not a long-term study, so there are still shortcomings, but it's better than the usual Social Studies experiments.