PowerPoint Use in the Undergraduate Biology Classroom: Perceptions and Impacts on Student Learning

Visual representations of physical and natural phenomena are important components of the teaching and learning of biology. In current undergraduate biology classrooms, visual representations are most often provided to students on PowerPoint slides. This study focuses on the use of, and perceptions about, PowerPoint in undergraduate introductory biology classes to understand how PowerPoint composition can best promote student learning. Likert survey results from students and faculty along with course grades were used to assess these notions. Study findings show that all participants perceived PowerPoint images to be beneficial; however, not all participant groups found text beneficial. There were also differing perceptions of the teaching efficacy of PowerPoint found among groups. When test scores from two different PowerPoint slide treatments were examined, differences were found in overall student grades, with higher grades for students in an image-only treatment versus a text-and-image-combined treatment. The group with the most significant learning gains was students below the 75th quartile. The study indicates that simple adjustments to PowerPoint slides may help increase student learning for groups who customarily struggle with the science content.