And of course, the initial study in question is...
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/oppla...eimer_2010.pdf
It's loaded with caveats, by the way, including:
- The samples used were fairly short, e.g. 90s of reading and a multiple-choice test
- Novelty of a specific approach (e.g. using Comic Sans) will likely wear off after time
- They don't know yet how to quantify "disfluent" and "unintelligible"
- Some mechanisms may not work (e.g. small fonts)
- Other studies do not agree with the researchers, and it may well be material-dependent
However, there is one thing they propose, to which I for one would agree, namely the proposition that:
"the most effective disfluency manipulations would likely be those that are within the bounds of the normal variation of fonts and materials that could reasonably appear in a classroom."
I.e. putting a critical concept
in italics or
in a bolded font might help retain certain key concepts. Wow.
At any rate, while the study may one day bear fruit which does improve education, it certainly isn't strong enough to conclude that ereaders will somehow degrade comprehension because it's "too easy" to read them.