Source: Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 18(3), 509-535. (2010).
The current mixed-methods study investigated the perceptions of 304 teacher education students regarding the learning-related value of handouts accompanying teacher educators’ computer-generated slide presentations. The extent to which graduate and undergraduate students differed in their perceptions was also investigated.
Data were collected through interviews and a questionnaire.
The results revealed that handouts that accompany computer-generated slide presentations served as a crucial learning tool for students in their teacher education experiences.
The Mann-Whitney U test showed significant differences in responses between graduate and undergraduate teacher education students. When teacher educators lectured with computer-generated slide presentations and accompanied those lectures with handouts, the undergraduates reported less note-taking than the graduate students.
However, when teacher educators lectured with such slide presentations but failed to provide handouts, the undergraduates, compared with the graduate students, were significantly more concerned about copying down notes from the slides rather than listening to the lecture.
This study also found that amount of detail provided in a handout affects the degree of perceived student learning. Students reported that slide presentation handouts in the form of “guided notes,” which provide only an outline of the presentation, facilitated better learning and note-taking compared to complete handouts and no handouts at all.