“The Effects of Text Spacing on Screen Reading Time and Comprehension”, 2009-09 ():
As computers continue to become pervasive, learners spend more and more time reading and learning in front of the screen. In view of this, there is an increased need to rethink text layout on-screen for optimal readability and performance.
The present study investigated the effects of spacing after the period on on-screen reading time and comprehension among [n = 63] college students…participants were randomly assigned to either the ‘single space’, ‘double space’, or ‘triple space’ group…There were a total of 3 passages. Each text passage would normally require no more than 10 minutes (600s/passage).
The results showed that there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that a performance difference exists, in an on-screen reading task, between text formatting using single space, double space, or triple space in sentence separation.
The study suggested that the difference on reading time is more correlated to individual psychological factors such as age and reading strategy.
[Keywords: text spacing, readability, reading time, reading comprehension]
Spacing Reading Time: Mean (SD) Comprehension: Mean (SD) n One-space 302.40 (100.244) 7.20 (2.526) 20 Double-space 327.04 (126.996) 7.88 (2.383) 24 Triple-space 319.87 (122.270) 7.40 (3.158) 15 …Then, a multivariate omnibus analysis of variance was conducted to determine the effect of the 3 types of text spacing (one space, double space, and triple space) on the two dependent variables, reading time and reading comprehension. statistically-significant differences were not found among the 3 spacing conditions on the dependent measures, Wilks’ Λ = 0.982, F(4, 110)= 0.249. The p-value for this statistic is 0.91. The MANOVA omnibus effects are not generalizable. Based on this result, we conclude that there is no sufficient evidence to reject the hypothesis that groups differ and conclude that the 3 group centroids are identical.