CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Science and technology expand society's knowledge. Science helps human beings gain
an increased understanding of how the world works, while technology helps scientists make
discoveries. All of these are brought by the knowledge acquired from science and technology.
Thus, learning accelerated because of different media that are being developed which are all
interactive and which bring learning experiences to the next level.
Presnky (2008), Tapscott (2009) and Sprenger (2010) claimed that technology has
changed the way today’s students learn. The use of multimedia in education has proven its
importance due to its positive impact on the teaching and learning process.
Thompson et al. (2010), categorize five types of media research in educational
technology, including evaluation research, media comparison studies, intra-medium studies,
aptitude-treatment interaction studies, and alternative research designs.
According to Willett (2007), educators are aware of how multimedia presentations
“meet different learning styles, motivate students, and address important social and cultural
aspects of children’s and young people’s learning”. Students learn in many different ways. In order
to ensure that all students learn, modifying instruction and assessment to address differences is
important. Addressing student’s diversity increases academic achievement by reaching them.
While the study conducted by Heilbronner (2009) asserts that teachers must have a positive
influence on students’ attitude towards science and help the students realize their abilities in
science through moving “away from traditional classroom practice and incorporate some new
ways of teaching”. One way to incorporate new ways of teaching is with the use of multimedia
presentation in teaching a specific competency.
The PowerPoint Presentation is a program/ application created using Microsoft Office
software. The presentation is a collection of individual slides that contain information on a topic.
PowerPoint presentations are commonly used in business meetings and for training and
educational purposes (Phaedra Krizo July 26 2017).

Benefits of PowerPoint presentation

According to Chang (2004), multimedia presentations in teaching improve students’
attitudes toward the subject matter while Lee and Keckley (2006) reported positive effect of
multimedia lessons on students’ performance. On the other hand, Mayer (2003) said that
multimedia presentations are less effective when irrelevant words and pictures are included in the
presentation because the words and pictures distract the learner from the main points. To ensure
effective multimedia presentations, it is important to take into account if the characteristics of the
multimedia presentation are useful. In this sense, avoidance of distraction for the leaners would
be minimized.
According to Gilakjani (2012), there are three reasons and the rationale for the use of
multimedia in the classroom. According to him, its use increases students’ interest level,
enhances their understanding, and increases their memorizing ability. There are different learning
styles for different students and multimedia provides a variety of learning styles at the same time
caters for the requirement of different students and addresses individual differences.
Previous research has shown that students typically have an overall positive view of
PowerPoint and the majority of students believe that PowerPoint presentations make professors
appear more prepared and keep students’ attention better (Frey & Birnbaum 2002; Susskind
2005). Studies that have monitored faculty response to PowerPoint have yielded mixed results;
some show that faculty members prefer transparency slides or whiteboards for lecture purposes,
while others felt PowerPoint was able to deliver lecture information with increased clarity (Parker
et al., 2008; Gupta 2011; Nicholson, 2002).
One of the most used methods of instruction was the use of PowerPoint in teaching
Science. Several researchers studied the impact of the use of PowerPoint on student academic
performance. Researchers Slykhuis, Wiebe, and Len (2005) employed eye tracking technology
to determine the most effective use of PowerPoint instruction. While Hansen and Williams (2008),
performed research in the areas of comparing traditional classroom instruction with more modern
methods such as the use of PowerPoint, web-based learning, the virtual lecture hall, web-based
reading programs, evaluating computer use in public access areas, and assessing students’
perceptions and preferences for instructional methods. Clark (2008) asserted that student interest
and engagement in classroom lectures can be achieved through the use of PowerPoint. She
concluded that while the students like the visuals, colors, graphics, sounds, and movement they
expect the slides to be relevant to the content and learning. Slides for the sake of ascetics had no
educational value.
Here at our country, specifically at Lipa City National High School, there are study that
involves the effectiveness of PowerPoint Presentation to the academic performance of selected
students. According to Haber et al. (2014), based to their findings utilizing technology in teaching
was effective and made a better result than employing traditional method.
However, according to Nouri and Shahid (2005), PowerPoint Presentation may improve
student attitudes toward the instructor and class presentation but the study shows the medium
alone does not influence learning.
 The evidence that PowerPoint presentations influence learning is largely anecdotal.
Bryant and Hunton (2000) state that the degree of improved learning is a function of a complex
set of interactions among learner and medium attributes. Mason and Hlynka (2012) state that
PowerPoint helps structure the content and processing of a lesson or lecture. Parks (2001) reports
that students liked the lecture outline and graphs on the screen, and that PowerPoint presentation
had a positive influence on students.

Theoretical Framework
PowerPoint presentations incorporate graphics, animation and color (imagery). Human
information processing theories focus on how the human memory system gathers, transforms,
compacts, elaborates, encodes, retrieves, and uses information (Moore et al., 2000). Human
information processing theories can shed light on how PowerPoint features may influence
learning. One of the theories is Paivio’s dual coding theory of memory and cognition (Paivio 1999).
This theory suggests that imagery and verbal systems are two subsystems of information
processing. According to dual coding theory, the imagery system processes information about
nonverbal objects, including images for shapes, pictures, models, animation, color and sound.
It is referential encoding that is most relevant for this study. The graphical nature of the
PowerPoint presentation arouses students’ imagery systems, which become more activated
when information is presented in non-verbal forms. PowerPoint presentations should arouse the
imagery system and could contribute to comprehension, and improve the learning capabilities of
student. Since, in a PowerPoint presentation, topics are presented in a hierarchical fashion with
graphics, color, and animation, students could “use a mental image of that outline to study, to
retrieve the information on a test, to organize their answer for an essay question, and to perform
other educational tasks. Rose (2001), also notes that presentation of learning materials in
graphical form is beneficial for students.
Cognitive theory suggests that learning is optimized when learners’ preferred
representation styles are congruent with the attributes of educational technology. While offering
guidelines for educators in using technology for instruction, Bryant and Hunton (2000) suggest
that individual characteristics (cognitive differences) be taken into account in instructional design.
Dual coding theory suggests that learners have preferred representation styles. Some
individuals learn and recall well from visually presented information while others learn and recall
well from verbally presented information. Kozma (1994) submits that to understand the
relationship between media and learning, we need to consider the interaction between the
attributes of the medium and the cognitive processes of students.