Spyridakis, J. H., Schultz, L. D., & Bartell, A. L. (2005). Heading frequency and comprehension: Studies of print versus online media. In Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Conference of the Society for Technical Communication (pp. 138-142).

Spyridakis, J.;Schultz, L.; Bartell, A.

2005

Spyridakis, J. H., Schultz, L. D., & Bartell, A. L. (2005). Heading frequency and comprehension: Studies of print versus online media. In Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Conference of the Society for Technical Communication (pp. 138-142).

This paper describes a study that examined the effect of heading frequency on comprehension and perceptions of information presented in print versus online text. Results indicated that heading frequency did not differentially affect the comprehension of readers of print text while it did differentially affect the comprehension of readers of online texts who had considerably lower comprehension scores with text that had high frequency versus medium frequency headings.

Participants in the print condition had significantly higher comprehension overall than participants in the online conditions. We also found that across both subject groups (print and online) high frequency headings (1heading per 100 words) led to significantly lower comprehension than low frequency headings (1 heading per 300 words).

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