My First UX Research Study was completed in High School
Pagination of the what-now?
I completed a full-scale research process over the course of nine months in High School as my AP Research thesis. It was literally my first child. AP Research is the second year of a two-year diploma program called AP Capstone, where high school students learn about conducting research and adding to the body of knowledge and work on a year long real research study.
In Georgia, students take a virtual assessment called the Milestones EOC assessment every year for several classes to test competency in certain disciplines. My research question had to do with the visual layout of the exam being paginated (you could only see one question at a time, surrounded by various colorful design elements, and users had to go page-by-page through the exam).
I wondered if a scrolling visual design would result in any noticeable effect on test scores on a sample of 30 Georgia high school students.
I conducted an extensive literature review, designed an experiment, collected data and performed data collection, and spoke on the implications of my research. It culminated in a 51 page research paper which you can see here. At the bottom of the article is my final presentation slideshow, embedded.
Abstract from the research paper:
This is my abstract which took WAY too long to write. Absolutely a killer portion of my paper and it’s only 200 words. The reason why it was so difficult to complete was just because I had to shrink nine months of labor and love into a little excerpt that explains everything in as few words as possible. But I think it does a good job.
Georgia adopted a change to its high school standardized testing administration from pencil and paper to electronic hypermedia software. End-Of-Course (EOC) assessments are presented to students through this web-connected software. The graphical user interface of the EOC assessment software presents what software designers would consider a “paginated viewing method.”
The visual pedagogy field has come to several conclusions about pagination and the effects that its manipulation has on cognition in testing environments, however some are conflicting. The present study explored whether changing the viewing method from paging to using scrolling of a hypermedia modeled closely after the American Literature & Composition EOC assessment had any measurable effect on test-takers without an expert advisor. Answer selections were collected from the mock EOC hypermedia; a score was calculated for matched pairs across two trials.
The experimentally collected data was analyzed and the results demonstrated that the manipulation of pagination did not have a measurable effect on test performance. The present study discusses why the null hypothesis could not be rejected, details what avenues should guide future research, and aims to bridge a small gap in the field and provide recommendations to the designers of the Georgia Milestones test administration software.
Excerpts from the Appendices:
The appendices from my paper consisted of 18 pages of screenshots from the testing material I designed, evidence of data collection, IRB approval forms, and consent forms for minors and adults.
Data Collection and Results
I really did sit high school students down to take this testing material for me twice. Once for the control and twice for the experimental material (half of the sample took the experimental test first so I could eliminate repetition bias). I collected test scores and used a statistical hypothesis test I had just learned in the previous year in AP Statistics: a two-block hypothesis test for a difference of means.
I plugged in my values and obtained a p-value. This told me what the probability was that my results were in the acceptable range of possible test scores, to simplify for the reader. Ultimately my collected data did not show that there was a significant difference between the two testing materials (between paging and scrolling).
The Final Presentation:
This presentation is the 12 minute culmination of my work where I do my best to describe and illustration what my research question was about and why it was relevant and go in depth about the experimental design and data collection and analysis. It did include GIFs for better visual learning (when explaining pagination vs scrolling) but I was unable to keep the animations when I embedded it below. Enjoy it below (refresh if it doesn’t show up)!