Análisis y discusión de resultados

5.3.1 Use and development of the DBT approach

With regard to the Demonstration-Based Training approach, this study built on the limited amount of available research (e.g. Rosen et al., 2010; Grossman et al., 2013; Van der Meij and Van der Meij, 2016). From the experience of this study, the DBT approach is a flexible and practical approach to design instruction. The first recommendation for future research is therefor to employ more empirical

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studies and/or literature review in order to study which instructional features are effective for which circumstances (including e-learning), so more instructional designers can more easily apply the DBT approach.

For instance, in this study not one but two approaches were used to convey information: DBT for training design and adherence to cognitive communication principles by Kosslyn et al. (2012) for presentation design. One could argue one of the approaches could be used for both. There are some similarities between the two approaches. For instance, both assume cognitive processes need to be facilitated in order for the target audience to reap benefits from the information presented to them. Kosslyn et al (2012) relate the principles of Discriminability, Perceptual Organisation and Salience to encoding processes stating the audience has to see and make sense of what they see in order to process information. This is closely related to the attention processes facilitated by the DBT approach which relates to learners actively processing what they see (Rosen et al., 2010). The retention

processes described in the DBT and the working memory principles (Limited capacity and Informative Changes) described by Kosslyn et al. (2012) both aim for perceived information to be stored and intergrated. Even for facilitating motivation processes stated in DBT and accessing long term memory principles (Appropriate knowledge, Compatibility and Relevance) the goal is similar, affecting the ease to extract (positive) meaning from the perceived information.

However, DBT is very focused on learning and includes facilitating production processes, whereas the cognitive communication principles do not include active learning activities in their approach. Also, DBT is not content specific and whereas the principles offer very detailed guidelines and cognitive principles do not specifically aim to motivate the audience. The approaches could be integrated to benefit each other. For the design of training, the DBT approach is a good way to make sure learning processes are supported in a more general way. The specific principles by Kosslyn et al. (2012) could be used as guidelines for the instructional features in the DBT approach, in the case of this study, they could have been used to design the learning elements such as the ‘what & why’ or ‘procedure’ videos but also the process worksheets. For presentation design, it might be a good idea to include the DBT model in the early stages of presentation creation, such as when setting the goal for the presentation to make sure to facilitate all four cognitive processes. Also, presentations are often used for educational purposes so possibilities to facilitate production processes would be a nice addition to presentation design guidelines. The development of the DBT model would benefit from more research on its application to different contexts.

5.3.2 Define more visual design guidelines for presentations

During the adaption process of the original presentation checklist by Kosslyn at al. (2012) for this study, insights were gained into potential gaps in the instructional content of the online training. It became clear that not much detail is provided in training on specific data visualization design (for graphs, diagrams and charts, keys and labels) or the effects of using certain colours, that almost no attention given to dynamic animation and transitions and that sound as a presentation element was not mentioned at al. It seems that –to some extent- these potential gaps have been recognized by

participants as well. In the results of interviews, several participants commented on wanting to know more about the possibilities of PowerPoint (for instance on dynamic movement) and more in-depth guidelines on visualisations. However, apparently gaps in this area are a common occurrence when guidelines for presentation design are provided. Berk (2011) states that most studies concerning evidence based presentation design guidelines focus on the basic features of PowerPoint, while the use of rich media (such as movement, music, visuals and videos) receives little attention despite their potential increase of comprehension, understanding, memory and deep learning. It is therefor a recommendation for GriDD to consider these potential gaps in instructional content for training improvement and for future research to research and develop more (specific, evidence based) guidelines for ‘rich media’ use in presentations.

5.3.2 Further development of the presentation checklist

Another suggestion for future research is to make the Presentation Checklist more widely accessible, reliable and applicable. The list by Kosslyn et al. (2012) was a great instrument and in this study an effort was made to provide more clarity to the instrument by explaining the rule items of the list in more depth. Still both raters in this study needed to discuss disparities of interpretation and find

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consensus on what the items meant for the instrument to become reliable and useful. Reliability research among a large sample of raters could specify the instrument further and make it an even better addition to the knowledge base on guidelines for presentation design.

Additionally, it would be good if future research addressed an issue that arose in this study concerning the items on the checklist: when scoring the items, it became clear that not all of the items are applicable to every presentation. For instance, if a presentation does not display a table, all of the items concerning table design are void. In this study, whenever a presentation did not display a table, items concerning tables were coded as ‘no violation’. However, this kind of ‘no violation’ is of a different order than if a table had been displayed in the presentation and no violation of design rules occurred. A solution could be to code the first instance as ‘not applicable’ so as to not muddle the data. These could then be excluded as missing values or, for instance, multiple imputation could be used to replace the missing values. In this study with such a small population, exclusion or imputation would impact the data and thus the reliability of analysis too much, so to remain within the scope of a master thesis, it was chosen to reserve this observation as a recommendation for future research.