Effectiveness of Audio and Visual Training Presentation Modes for Glucometer Calibration

Abstract

This experiment investigated whether different presentation modes of instructional materials are differentially effective for older and younger adults learning to calibrate a glucometer. Glucometers are complex and require serial, sequential steps to calibrate them successfully. Some previous studies have failed to find a difference for older adults between instructions presented via audio and instructions presented with both audio and video (e.g. Stine, Wingfield & Myers, 1990); others have even found audio superior to video for presentation of instructions (Meline, 1976; Hale, 1998). In the current study, 12 older and 12 younger adults each received one type of training (audio or audio plus video) then were instructed to calibrate the glucometer using the information they received in the training. Overall, the presentation mode the groups received did affect their performance when later using the device, showing that for complex, sequential, spatial tasks, the addition of video to audio instructions improves performance for both younger and older adults.

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