Role of Hand Gestures in Learning Math Problems

On September 24th, Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield came and talked about her research on the relationship between hand gestures and speech in teaching, specifically in teaching math problems to children. Looking more into the relationship between hand gestures and learning, I was curious to see if gestures improved learning in all types of learning, and I came across a study of gestures in math problems, similar to Dr. Wakefield’s research, but in terms of equations and graphs. However, this study showed that although gestures can increase learning, in some instances, no gestures may be more beneficial, which I found interesting.

In Dr. Wakefield’s research, 2 groups were being taught a simple math problem. One group was taught the strategy with just speech, and the other group had speech and gestures to visually show the grouping strategy. Overall, the results showed that the children who had gestures along with speech performed better on the posttest compared to those children with just the speech. This research showed that children were able to look more at the math problem, and that there does seem to be a benefit to the children is being able to see more and connect the speech with the visuals of the math problem.

In the other research study on middle school students, research was being done on the role of gestures in math problems, but instead on the links between linear equations and their graphs. In one group, the students were shown a video lesson explaining the links between the graphs and equations. In another group, the same links were explained, but it included gestures to the equations, and then gestures to the graphs. In this study, the results showed that students performed worse when gestures referred to the equations. This was interesting, because it showed that in this case, when the gestures were redundant to what the speaker was saying, and essentially provided no extra information visually, the gestures were detrimental to the learning of the students.

Comparing this study to Dr. Wakefield’s research, it seems as though gestures along with speech in solving math problems is beneficial if the gestures aren’t repetitive. For example, in Dr. Wakefield’s study, the gestures showed the strategy of grouping, so this technique aided and was a supplement to the speech of the video, because it showed which numbers went together to help the students understand how to solve the problem. In the second study, the gestures were repetitive, in that when the number in the equation was said, that number was pointed at. Hand gestures seem to be beneficial in cases to supplement the speech and combine both speech and visual learning. After learning about the research in both of the studies, it seems that students will benefit with these techniques of learning and teachers should implement more non-repetitive gestures for their students!

References:

Wakefield E, Novack MA, Congdon EL, Franconeri S, Goldin-Meadow S. “Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention.” Wiley, 2018 February. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12664

Yeo, Amelia et al. “Teachers' gestures and students' learning: sometimes "hands off" is better.” Cognitive research: principles and implications vol. 2,1 (2017): 41. doi:10.1186/s41235-017-0077-0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5655596/