MULTIMEDIA PRODUCT CRITIQUE #2: Kahoot!

Multimedia Product Critique #2

Kahoot!

Alexe Miles

EDIT 720

Coastal Carolina University

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Introduction

Todays society involves a never ending push towards integrating multimedia technology in the

classroom. There are numerous educational websites and apps all over the internet that claim they can

help boost student achievement and be beneficial towards helping students succeed in the classroom.

However, its often time consuming to try and research which websites students can use to better boost

their cognitive skills. In this paper, I will give you a product overview and analysis of the educational

website Kahoot. I will include step by step directions of how to navigate through the website as well as

include multimedia learning theories that are supported and/or not supported by Kahoot.

Product Overview

Kahoot is an online educational website that is used to reinforce and supplement all classroom

standards based content areas. Kahoot offers practice trivia quizzes, online surveys, discussion board

options, and games to play to reinforce classroom content material. Kahoot is all free and only requires

an account to be created as well as a username and password. To begin, teachers can go to

www.getkahoot.com. After creating the account, teachers simply have to log in and decide which type

of activity they would like for their students to complete. Below I will take you through the steps to set

up an online quiz for students to use. Once you sign in, you simply click on the big purple circle with a

question mark labeled quiz.

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After clicking on this circle, youll be redirected to begin setting up your quiz.

Teachers will have to create a title for their quiz and give a short description describing what the quiz is

about. Teachers can then select who the quiz is visible to, the language, and the audience pertaining to

the quiz. Images related to the quiz may be uploaded in the upload image box. Once this information

is entered, you simply hit the green ok, go button to begin creating questions.

To begin creating questions, teachers simply click on the purple circle with the plus and begin typing

your questions and answer choices. Ive entered a sample question using Revolutionary War
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information. Time limits can be changed and teachers can decide on awarding points for correct

responses. Once the question is complete, teachers will hit the green next button to continue typing

questions.

Once all questions have been created, teachers will click the green Save button to save their quiz. The

next screen gives the teacher the option to play it, share it, edit it, or preview it; or teachers can click on

the green Im done button to go back to the home screen. If the play button is hit, the following

screen will pop up asking how to play the trivia game.

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You can set up the game to play where each student has their own laptop or handheld device to input

answers or in team mode where students share devices. There is also an arrow for game options which

include the following selections to select for your trivia game.

After selecting game options, teachers click on the type of game to play (individual or team mode) and a

screen with sign in directions will be given like the image below.
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For students to join this game, on their device, they go to www.kahoot.it.com and a screen like the

following will appear. Students will enter the game PIN from the previous screen shot and press enter.

They will then be prompted to enter their name and then student names will begin to appear under the

players (on previous screen shot).

Once all players have entered, teachers can hit the begin button to begin the quiz. Once quizzes have

started, the screen for teachers to project on the board will look similar to this:
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The student screen on their devices will simply have the four colored squared where they select the

square of the correct answer. Once selected, a screen will appear showing how many students got the

questions correct/incorrect and then give a rundown on point standings (if teachers chose this option).

The teacher will proceed to the next question and complete the quiz. At the end, a final rundown of

points will show up as well as options to download data, play again, or play a new game.

If the teacher choses to download data, it will look similar to the following:
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Back at the home screen, the survey option setup and the discussion option is the same as the trivia

game setup. They both are just like the trivia game option as well. The Jumble version gives students

the opportunity to put things in order when selecting and the screen look a little different:

Through the use of any of the available options of Kahoot, students are given an opportunity to

participate in an engaging and interactive form of studying and review of content material.

Multimedia Learning Theories

Kahoot can be used as a resource tool to review and practice content. However, it does not

comply with several of the multimedia learning theories; therefore, it may not be the most successful

choice when it comes to helping students with transfer of information and mastering content material.

One theory Kahoot does not comply with is the dual-coding theory. Mayer and Sims state that learners

use two separate information processing systems; one that represents information verbally and one

that represents information visually (p390). In order for students to have a meaningful and successful

problem solving transfer of information, students must have a connection between both the verbal and

visual processing systems. It is also believed this problem solving transfer will be more successful if these

two separate processing systems (verbal and visual) are presented at the same time and are

coordinated. Unfortunately, Kahoot does not provide any type of narration of questions. Students are

only able to read the questions. Another theory Kahoot does not comply with is the modality principle.
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This principle refers to the theory that people learn more deeply when words are spoken rather than

printed (p317). Research presented in an article by Mayer and Pilegard suggests higher transfer

performance with multimedia instruction consisting of pictures with narrated text versus picture with

non-narrated text (p332-337). Again, Kahoot simply offers the option of having students read the text.

There is no narration offered to have the questions read to the student. A third theory Kahoot does not

comply with is the segmenting principle. The segmenting principle suggests that learners learn deeper

when instruction is presented in learner-paced segments instead of a continual segment (p317). One

technique Mayer and Pilegard suggests when segmenting is to allow students to control the pace of

presentations given in class (p320). Research has been completed and concludes a positive correlation

between higher students learning using segmented instruction rather than continual instruction (p327-

329). Kahoots options consist of timed practices that only allow students a limited number of seconds

to read and decide on an answer and the allotted time is decided on by the teacher and not the student;

therefore going against giving students the control of the presentation. The segmenting principle also

suggests short segmented presentations. Depending on the number of questions, some Kahoot options

can be rather lengthy depending on the number of questions the teacher has created; therefore, not

allowing for short segments to help reduce extraneous cognitive overload.

Improvements

To make Kahoot better comply with the multimedia learning theories, there needs to be the

option to have the text on the screen narrated. Since narrated text helps with transfer of information

and is needed alongside visuals to increase student learning; this option would help students achieve a

higher rate of success when learning content material. A second improvement would be the option to

not have the questions timed to allow for students to have control of their responses at their pace to

comply with the segmenting principle. There also should be a limit number of questions for students to
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have to answer to reduce the extraneous cognitive overload associated with overwhelming material

being presented in the same continual time frame.

Summary

Kahoot can be a useful tool to reinforce classroom instruction and content related material. It

gives students the opportunity to practice trivia style questions in an interactive and engaging

atmosphere. However, due to the number of multimedia learning theories it does comply with or

support, it may not be the most beneficial tool for students and teachers to use.
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References

Mayer, R.E. & Pilegard C. (2014) Principles for managing essential processing in multimedia learning:

segmenting, pre-training, and modality principles. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of

Multimedia Learning. (pp. 316-344). New York: Cambridge.

Mayer, R.E., Sims, V.K. (1994). For whom is a picture worth a thousand words? Extensions of a dual-

coding theory of multimedia learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 389-401.