Gestures during learning improve comprehension
People sometimes make various gestures, such as pointing their fingers, spreading their hands, and moving like a knife when talking. We know that these movements not only help convey thoughts to the listener, but also seem to help them learn.
Instructed Hand Movements Affect Students' Learning of an Abstract Concept From Video --Zhang --2021 --Cognitive Science --Wiley Online Library
Students Who Gesture during Learning'Grasp' Concepts Better --Scientific American
From previous research, it has been found that when learning something, it is easier to remember if you watch the teacher's movements or imitate the movements with your hands or arms. Recent studies have suggested that instructing learners to make certain movements can help them learn, even if they are not aware of why they are doing that movement. ..
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and California State University, Los Angeles are taking this research further to explore the boundaries of 'the power of gestures.'
The researchers conducted an experiment through a video viewing experience of a statistical model. Participants were divided into three groups, with Group A simply watching the video without doing anything. What Group B saw was an animation of the red stick moving away from the graph on top of the video seen by Group A, and the participants held the red stick in their hands and imitated the movement in the same way. Group C also imitated the movement of the stick by watching the video with the animation of the red stick superimposed, but the movement of the red stick had nothing to do with the graph.
After watching the video three times, all the participants answered short questions, and the score was B group] A group] C group. It is speculated that the instructed action influenced thinking, even unconsciously.
Gestures also have the advantage of 'not letting learners get bored.' In the experiment, I watched the video three times repeatedly, and when I asked the participants to evaluate how much they could understand the video each time, the B and C groups who were gesturing were highly evaluated. The non-gesture A group's rating dropped by about 20% from the second to the third. It is believed that this was not the result of Group A participants' 'understanding' but the dissatisfaction of 'having to watch the video again'.
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in Science, Posted by logc_nt