The folly of fancy fonts

Anthony Selick
,
James Bury

Shumei University

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

Research has indicated that the font information is presented in can be used by readers as a visual guide to the potential difficulty of the content; specifically that disfluent fonts are perceived as indicating greater task difficulty. A series of preliminary experiments was conducted in a Japanese high school in order to determine if such effects can be found in second language learners. It was found that students do indeed use the font lesson materials are presented in as a guide to the perceived difficulty or enjoyability of a task. Furthermore, these decisions are made within seconds of first seeing the material. The potential effects of disfluent fonts in boosting vocabulary retention were also investigated. However, while the results were inconclusive, it was determined that the students believed that such an effect existed. While further research is needed, these results indicate that teachers can potentially engineer small increases (or decreases) in student motivation via the font they choose when preparing lesson materials.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Journal of pedagogic development

Publication milestones

Published - 11/2016

Publication status

Published - 11/2016

ISSN

2047-3265

External Publication IDs

handle.net: 10547/621827

Access to documents

346-887-1-SM.pdf

Final published version, 170.17 KB

License:CC BY-NC-ND

Publication metrics

Metrics

Download statistics

Download count