Timing of Information Presentation in Learning Statistics

This study in the domain of statistics comparesfour information presentation formats in a 2 × 2factorial design: timing of supportiveinformation (before or during taskpractice) × timing of procedural information(before or during task practice).Seventy-two psychology and education students(7 male and 65 female; mean age 18.5 years,SD = 2.85) participated. Theeffectiveness of the learning material wasmeasured by test performance. The instructionalefficiency was measured by a combination ofmental effort during practice and testperformance (i.e., a high test performancecombined with a low mental effort duringpractice denotes a high instructionalefficiency). ANOVA showed a main effect fortiming of supportive information: presentationduring practice led to more efficient learning than presentationbefore practice. Moreover, an interactioneffect was found. Simultaneous presentation ofprocedural information before andsupportive information during practiceled to the most efficient learning.