It’s football season . . . which reminds me of an interesting study. In it, Guadagno, Sundie, Asher, and Cialdini (2006) presented football statistics to groups of students-some were fans with extensive knowledge of the sport, some were unfamiliar with its intricacies. The premise was for students to act as recruiters and judge which players would be promising prospects for the team. The stats (yards gained, touchdowns, etc.) were presented in three different formats to the “recruiters:” typed lists of numbers, printed graphs, and animated graphs on presentation slides (e.g., bar graphs where individual bars appear consecutively instead of all at once). The researchers found that animated statistics were more persuasive than typed summaries or printed graphs. While the effect was more pronounced for audience members who were unfamiliar with football stats, even the experts found animated graphs most effective for highlighting performance.
I have since incorporated the topic of graph animation into one of my courses in international communication and find it enhances student presentations. The assignment is to compare two countries in an area of interest (e.g., education performance, income distribution, air quality) and investigate the reasons for performance difference. Students start by selecting a topic-either from a list I provide, or by consulting newspapers, almanacs, and statistical Web sites for additional ideas. For instance, last semester, a student, Alena, selected the topic “vacation time” from the example list I provided in class. She checked a statistical Web site, www.nationmaster.com, and other online sources for preliminary information and then decided to compare the United States and Germany. Not to promote European ideas ;-), but Germans are getting an average of three times as many days of paid vacation as U.S. Americans. Alena then conducted research using the library’s databases and interviewing an exchange student from Germany. In the end, Alena determined that the factors contributing to longer vacations in Germany include a higher rate of unionization and a more pronounced value placed on leisure.
The project culminates in presentations, for which students learn how to animate statistics (e.g., on PowerPoint) and how to present the animated graphs effectively. Concerning the bar graph on vacation time, for example, Alena needed to speak about the United States while displaying only the U.S. bar, and not show the contrast bar on Germany until ready to discuss it. This precise timing, allowed by animation, works wonders in focusing the audience’s attention and adding an element of anticipation and surprise. And student presentations become more engaging and memorable, as a result.
Students have five minutes for presenting their findings and are asked to limit the number of their slides. In fact, only one slide is required: the statistics slide. I discourage students from displaying the rest of their findings in bullet points. They present the reasons for the country discrepancy orally, learning to focus on the audience and to use presentation graphics only when true visual support is called for.
I’ve found the activity effective in improving presentation skills for two main reasons:
- Often, students do not have a feeling for how much information can be comfortably presented in a given period of time; as a result, they may either try to include too much or too little information in their presentations. With the focus on only one piece of statistics, the amount of information is a perfect fit for short presentations of about five minutes and lets students experience what a focused presentation feels like.
- Many students have a desire to fine-tune their computer skills. The activity provides an opportunity to learn a valuable, yet fun skill: statistics animation.
A limitation of the activity is that statistical data are often difficult to analyze. When they are collected from different sources-as they often are in international comparisons-care needs to be taken that the data sets are comparable and that potentially hidden factors (e.g., whether holidays are included in vacation calculations) are determined. Another caveat is that animation, if overdone, is distracting. So, it’s not clear, whether the technique would be as effective if one had to present more than one graph.
In my class, the activity promotes global awareness and, in cases, where the United States is the lower-performing contrast country, encourages activism and interest in improvements at home. But the project is very versatile and can be easily adapted to other subjects. I’d be interested to learn what activities related to graphs other people have found successful . . . or what problems are common.
References
Guadagno, R. E., Sundie, J. M., Asher, T., & Cialdini, R. B. (2006). The persuasive power of computer-based multimedia presentations. Unpublished manuscript, Arizona State University.
Nationmaster. (2007). Facts and statistics. Retrieved September 8, 2008, from http://www.nationmaster.com
This sounds like a wonderfully productive activity! I’ll have to incorporate it into my communication class (where M.P.A. students analyze statistics of/from developing nations).
There’s a famous lecture… from a couple of years ago. Using GIS data and mind-boggling moving imagery, a professor demonstrated issues with many of our commonly-held assumptions about trends in international development. I’ve been searching for it and can’t find it… Anyone? Help!
Sarah: I was just about to add a comment at that very person: Hans Rosling. He gave two presentations at the TED Conference (in 2006 and 2007). The software he developed that so vividly displays data, Gapminder, was sold to Google last year.
I am not familiar with the GIS lecture, but recently discovered a slideshare website. Maybe the lecture is part of it? http://www.slideshare.net
Thank you for sharing the Hans Rosling slideshow. It’s dazzling!
I would like to know whether in the original study how the control worked. For example, were players’ stats presented in both formats, in other words, Player A static (typed summaries or printed graphs) and Player B animated vs. Player A animated and Player B static? I would think to show this works, that irrespective of the information presented, the animated information would always have been deemed more persuasive.
My next question would be at what point in terms of discrepancy in statistics does the mode of presentation become irrelevant? I would think there would be a mathematical limit to this. It would be interesting to see whether animated graphs would so alter perception that audiences would perceive, say, Eli Manning to have been statistically better than Tom Brady.
These are interesting questions. Unfortunately, the study by Guadagno, Sundie, Asher, & Cialdini has not been published yet. I had contacted the authors a year or so ago and obtained a copy of their manuscript, but am sorry to say that I have lost track of the copy.
With regard to your second question, I would hope that the mathematical limit is reached sooner rather than later . . . this is where presenter ethics and the analytical and critical thinking skills should come in.