Teachers' gestures and students' learning: sometimes "hands off" is better

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Mathematics Education

Background:

• Teachers frequently link mathematical representations during instruction.
• Gestures are sometimes used to emphasize these links, but their impact on learning is not fully understood.
• This study focuses on gestures related to linear equations and their graphical representations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of teacher gestures, specifically those linked to equations and graphs, on middle school students' learning.
• To determine if redundant gestures (gestures that mirror speech) differentially affect learning based on the referent (equations vs. graphs).

Main Methods:

• Eighty-two middle school students participated in a pretest-posttest study.
• Students viewed video lessons demonstrating links between linear equations and graphs, with varying use of gestures.
• Four conditions were tested: no gestures, gestures to equations only, gestures to graphs only, and gestures to both.

Main Results:

• Students demonstrated learning across all conditions.
• Learning was significantly reduced when teachers used gestures to refer to equations compared to when they did not.
• Gestures referring to graphs did not negatively impact learning.

Conclusions:

• Redundant gestures accompanying speech can have differential effects on learning depending on the content.
• Gestures to equations may create attentional trade-offs, hindering comprehension of the relationship between equations and graphs.
• A nuanced understanding of gesture's role in multimodal learning is necessary for effective instructional design.