Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

Effects of Highlighting Text in Learning

Mariana Olivarez
University of Texas at San Antonio

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to observe the use of simple techniques to help promote student
learning. The effects of highlighting text in learning will be analyzed and compared across two
types of format. The participants that are interested for this study will be 150 male and female
undergraduate college students. This experiment will investigate three different learning
strategies (highlighting, underlying, and circling) that will be compared and analyzed across two
types of format (electronic based and paper based articles). The students will be tasked with
either highlighting, underlying, or circling important information while reading the text of either
a digital or paper copy of an article provided. The students will be given a 50 question exam
covering material from the article to test their recollection of the information. The results among
the groups will indicate that students tasked with highlighting text will perform better than
students tasked with circling or underlying words in the text. It will also demonstrate that
students provided with paper based copies of the article will perform better than students
provided with digital based copies. The findings from this study will help lead to improving
educational outcomes by assessing common learning techniques for effectiveness. This will help
students regulate their learning through effective learning techniques and help incorporate which
learning strategy works best to promote learning.

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

Effects of Highlighting Text in Learning

Have you ever wondered why some words are highlighted in textbooks and some are not?
Is it because that word or phrase is more important than the others? The purpose of highlighting
words in text is to make the information stand out to be remembered more easily. Highlighting is
used in multimedia outlets to bring attention to something that is important. Textbooks often
implement strategies like capital letters, italics, and highlighting for information that is assumed
to be of importance or more difficult for the student to understand (Fowler & Barker, 1974).
Computer display technology offers highlighting strategies that may improve the presentation of
information (Wu & Yuan, 2003). Search engines like Yahoo and Google use highlighted text
capabilities in their plug in tool bars for easy browsing (Chi, Gumbrecht, & Hong, 2007).
Prehighlighted key words in the text assists the reader with finding links for faster more effective
browsing. These are just two of the many multimedia formats that are implementing highlighting
as a tool to guide the readers attention to critical information. Although it is being implemented
in many ways, does that prove it is effective?
As students, we may learn to highlight important key words while reading or to highlight
important numbers in a math problem, but is it so they can stand out on the paper or in our
memory? Does the visual aspect of a colored background on a text make it stand out and easier
to remember? Does it affect the efficacy and time to recall or retain information? We have all
been taught different strategies for learning, however it is unclear how effective these strategies
are. Everyone learns differently so we can not say that one learning technique would work for
everyone, but maybe we can find one that yields the best results for the most people. If we could
find which learning strategies are most effective for the majority of students and how to
implement them for the best results, we can improve student learning and achievement.

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

There are many different kinds of techniques and strategies that can be tested to promote
student learning and metacognition. Metacognition is the awareness of ones knowledge and
their ability to understand, control, and manipulate ones cognitive process. Metacognitive
processes use strategies, like highlighting, for approaching learning tasks. Metacognitive
strategies are used to control and regulate learning. Metacognitive strategies correlate with
successful learning and can be taught (Staff, T.C., 2014). Individuals who have attained a variety
of metacognitive skills work more efficiently and do better on exams. Knowing which cognitive
strategy that would produce the best results and how to modify it if needed ensures the
completion of the task.
We live in a fast paced world and seldom do we slow down for anything. Generally while
reading many people skim read or read over information quickly. Is this an effective way to learn
or retain information from what is being read? For some people reading over something once
may be enough for them to learn, but for many it is not. Readers often read things and do not
know what they are reading or they are not thinking about what they are reading. Skimming or
scanning through documents or text is a technique used for fast reading. Some readers skim
quickly for relevant information rather than analyzing a text for a deeper meaning (Chi, Hong,
Gumbrecht, & Card, 2005). Researchers have found an increase in skimming over reading in
depth (Chi et al., 2005). An effective way to direct the readers attention to important information
while skimming is needed (Chi et al., 2005). Highlighted key words in text makes it easier for
the reader to skim through something and find important information. When information is
already highlighted in text it lets the reader know that information is important and the reader
should focus on the message. Textbooks are effective in guiding the readers attention to relevant

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

information by highlighting vocabulary words in passages so the reader knows it is a topic of

interest.
Textbooks implement highlighting as a rehearsal strategy. Rehearsal strategies are used
to help the student differentiate between important information in the text and retain it in
working memory (Pintrich, 1999). This rehearsal strategy requires active or passive highlighting.
Active highlighting is the process where the student actively reads through text and selects
relevant information to highlight while passive highlighting is when the reader simply reads over
prehighlighted text. Textbooks often implement passive highlighting or typographical cueing,
like the use of capital letters, italics, and colored type, to gather the readers attention (Fowler &
Barker, 1974). Typographical signals or cues help students relate information. Some signals are
visual devices that make a message more clearly for a reader without adding information to the
message. Signals aid cognition by altering the way that a learner will address the message
(Scheiter & Eitel, 2015).
Reading is not only occurring on paper products like textbooks. Reading is occurring
online through blogs and on the web, and less on paper (Chi, Hong, Heiser, Card, & Gumbrecht,
2007). The fundamental shift in reading promotes the enhancement of reading activites (Chi,
Hong, Heiser, Card, & Gumbrecht, 2007). Analytical work has been carried out in the context of
reading to obtain reading tools that facilitate rapid digestion of large amounts of reading material
(Chi, Hong, Heiser, Card, & Gumbrecht, 2007). Intelligence analysts use highlighting to direct
the readers attention to texts that pertain to the related conceptual key words (Chi et al., 2007).
This makes is easier for the reader to filter information that is relevant from information that is
not. Key words help give the reader a better understanding of information by letting them know
that the information should be remembered.

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

One explanation for the effect of highlighted text on learning is von Rostorff isolation
effect that states that an item isolated against a homogenous background will be more likely to be
attended to or remembered (Chi et al., 2007). It suggests that readers will focus on and learn
what is marked whether it is important or not (Chi et al., 2007). This isolation effect proposes
that highlighted text will increase recall but not why it promotes recall (Chi et al., 2007). This
explanation suggests that highlighting is effective regardless of the information given. It shows
that students pay more attention to highlighted text.
Highlighting effects reading performance and learning. It improves reading performance
and enhances learning. Highlighting is an effective and efficient way to study material. Students
who highlight key words or phrases while studying will retain more information than those who
dont. Highlighting will increase the recall of information and the amount of information
recalled. Students who are tasked with highlighting text while reading will score higher test
results on recollection of material over students who are tasked with circling or underlining text
across multimedia outlets.
Method
Participants
The subjects are 150 undergraduate male and female students ranging in age from 18 to
24 enrolled in introduction to psychology courses by five different professors. The participation
for this study is voluntary. The students will be emailed informing them of an extra credit
opportunity for participating in a research study.
Measure
The students will be measured on how well they can recall information from the text by
taking a test after they have completed the learning task assigned to them. The students will be

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

assigned one of three learning techniques: highlighting, underlining, or circling key words paired
with one of two formats: digital or paper copies. The test will consist of 50 multiple choice
questions with four alternatives. The questions on the test will cover material where the answer is
found in the text. The test will be graded on a 100 point scale with two points per question.
Materials
The text readings will be digital and paper printed copies of a five page article called
Natural Science and Learning: A Review of Behavior Analysis and Learning (Weaver, 2014).
This reading will be unfamiliar to the students, but contain information relevant to the course.
Students that will be assigned paper copies of the article will be given writing utensils. The
students assigned to circling will be given a standard number 2 pencil, while the students that
will be assigned to highlighting will be given a yellow highlighter. Students that will be assigned
digital copies will be given an iPad with a styler pen to highlight, underline, or circle words. The
digital copies will be loaded as pdf files to allow the students to edit the document on adobe. All
students will be given a 50 question exam and number two pencil after completion of the task.
Procedure
The professors will send out an email to their students informing them of an extra credit
opportunity that would be available for anyone that is interested. The students will be informed
to reply with a yes or no if they would like to participate in the study. 150 of the students will be
chosen at random to participate, but all students who replied to the email with a yes will be given
extra credit. An additional email will be sent out to the 150 students selected, informing them to
meet in the library and bring their student ID with them so they can receive their extra credit.
Upon arrival, the students will be told to sign in then given an informed consent form. After
consent is given the students will be assigned to conditions at random. The students will be

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

divided into two groups. One group will be given the digital copies and the other paper copies.
The students from each group will be numbered off as a one, two, or three and will be separated
into groups accordingly. Each group will be assigned one of three learning techniques:
highlighting, circling, or underlining. The experiment will be held in designated lecture rooms
that will be reserved for the study. The students will be sent out to six different lecture rooms.
The students will be sat spread apart and will be given their materials needed to complete the
task. Students that will be assigned paper copies of the article will be given their article and
corresponding writing utensil, either a highlighter or a pencil. Students that will be assigned
digital copies will be given an IPad with a styler pen to highlight, underline, or circle words. The
students will be given 30 minutes to read the article and select key words from the text. After the
thirty minutes are up, the materials will be picked up. Immediately following, the test will be
passed out along with a number 2 pencil. The students will then be informed that they have an
hour to answer the 50 questions on the test. The students will be asked to sit and wait until
everyone is done with the test until anyone can leave. After everyone has completed the test it
will be picked up along with the pencils. The tests will then be graded and recorded. The students
that participated will be immediately compensated for their time. After they are compensated for
their time they will be debriefed on the true purpose for the experiment.
Analysis
The study uses a 2 x 3 factorial design as well as a between subjects design. A one way
ANOVA will be used to analyze the data.
Results
A main effect of highlighting will be found in learning technique (see Figure 1).
Highlighting (M=95) will produce better results than circling (M=70) and underlining (M=50). A

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

main effect of paper printed copies will be found in format (see Figure 2). Paper printed copies
(M=97) will produce significantly higher results than digital copies (M=67). There will be a
significant interaction between learning technique and type of format (see Figure 3). Students
who will be assigned to highlight on paper copies (M=98) will produce better results than
students assigned to highlight on digital copies (M=85). Highlighting will produce the best
results for students regardless of which format they are tasked with. Students who will be given
paper copies of the article will produce better results across all learning techniques. Optimal
results will be found in the group assigned to highlight on paper copies of the article.

Discussion
An important aspect of self-regulated learning is the ability of the student to incorporate
cognitive and metacognitive strategies to promote their learning (Pintrich, 1999). The results
indicate that highlighting is an effective technique used for promoting self-regulated learning.
The results are in line with the findings of Fowler and Barker (1974) that demonstrated that
highlighting increases the retention of text material. Readers tend to have increased recall in the
presence of highlighting (Chi, Gumbrecht, & Hong, 2007). The findings will show a significant
difference in the scores of students who will be given highlighting as a task over underlying or
circling words. Students who will be tasked with circling words will perform better than
students who will be tasked to underline words. The findings will also show a difference in
scores between students who use electronic versus paper copies. The students who will be given
paper printed copies of the article will score higher than students who receive an electronic copy
of the article. The students who will be assigned paper copies will produce higher results across
all learning tasks. The results will demonstrate that students who will be tasked with highlighting

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

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words on paper copies of the article will produce optimal results. Students who will be assigned
to circle words, regardless of format, will perform better on test than those that will be assigned
to underline words.
There are some limitations to the study that may need to be altered. First, some
experimental settings were fixed such as the classrooms, the media choice, highlight color, and
the selection method. For this study participants will be found on a volunteer basis which may
introduce confounding variables. For example, since students will be given extra credit for the
experiment it may attract students that are failing or doing poor and in need of extra credit. This
may result in some outliers in the study. It is expected that students may be selected another way
when replicating this study. The highlight color was limited. A yellow highlighter was used for
this experiment, but other colors may want to be tested as well. Darker highlighters that may not
stand out as much may produce alternate results. Alternate formats may also want to be tested.
Other formats may cause more efficacy or difficulty for learning when paired with different
techniques and could produce different results. The format chosen also may not work best for
students of a younger age who may not know how to use the program implemented in this
experiment. The setting for the experiment may affect the results of the study as well. College
auditorium lecture halls are perceived as learning environments and that alone could lead to a
confounding variable. Lastly, there may be another explanation for the results. Von Restorff was
one of the first to state that isolation of an item against a homogeneous background promoted
recall of that item (Cashen & Leicht 1970). The von Restorff isolation effect states that an item
isolated against a homogenous background will be more likely attended or remembered (Chi,
Gumbrecht, & Hong, 2007).

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

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The next step for this study is to include more learning techniques to compare to across
different formats. More learning techniques can be compared to improve the chance of finding
the most effective technique. Other self-learning techniques that may want to be tested include
mnemonics, imagery, rereading, and summarizing. Future studies may also want to explore
learning strategies across different subjects. Although highlighting seemed effective in this
experiment, another technique may result in better performance on scores in different course
subjects. Other formats may also want to be tested. It may be easier for the student to learn
information from a textbook or power point versus other learning outlets of choice. A study that
incorporates different formats with different techniques across different subjects should be
conducted to further research. Further research could lead to finding the techniques that work
best for specific courses and on which outlets the information is presented best.
Highlighting promotes the best self-learning among students. Incorporated with the best
media outlet, highlighting is the most effective learning technique used. It promotes the best
results. Highlighting fosters learning and proves beneficial to the students by producing higher
scores. The students that were given highlighting as a task, regardless of the outlet used,
performed better than students that were told to circle or underline words while reading.
Students who highlighted on paper copies scored higher than those who highlighted on electronic
copies.

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

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References
Cashen, V. M., & Leicht, K. L. (1970). Role of the isolation effect in a formal educational
setting. Journal of Educational Psychology, 61, 484-486. doi: 10.1037/h0030286
Chi, E. H., Hong, L., Gumbrecht, M., & Card, S. K. (2005). Scenthighlights: highlighting
conceptually-related sentences during reading. Proceedings of the 10th International
Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 1, 272-274. doi: 10.1145/1040830.1040895
Chi, E. H., Hong, L., Heiser, J., Card, S. K., & Gumbrecht, M. (2007). Scentindex and
scenthighlights: productive reading techniques for conceptually reorganizing subject
indexes and highlighting passages. Information Visualization, 6, 32-47. doi:
10.1057/palgrave.ivs.9500140
Chi, E. H., Gumbrecht, M., & Hong, L. (2007). Visual foraging. Human Computer Interaction,
4552, 589-598. doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-73110-8_64
Fowler, R. L., & Barker, A. S. (1974). Effectiveness of highlighting for retention of text material.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 358-364. doi: 10.1037/h0036750
Pintrich, P. R. (1999). The role of motivation in promoting and sustaining self-regulated
learning. International Journal of Educational Research, 31, 459-470. doi:
10.1016/S0883-0355(99)00015-4
Scheiter, K., & Eitel, A. (2015). Signals foster multimedia learning by supporting integration of
highlighted text and diagram elements. Learning and Instruction, 36, 11-27. doi:
10.1016/j.learninstruc.2014.11.002
Staff, T. C. Factsheet: metacognitive processes. Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL).
Retrieved April 25, 2014.
Weaver, M. T. (2014). Natural science and learning: A review of behavior analysis and
learning. The Behavior Analyst, 37, 61-65. doi: 10.1007/s40614-014-0003-4

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

Wu, J., & Yuan, Y. (2003). Improving and reading performance: the effect of highlighting and
text color coding. Information and Management, 40, 617-637. doi: 10.1016/S03787206(02)00091-5

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Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

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Highlighting
Circling
Underlining
Paper 98
71
54
Digial 85
67
50
Table 1. Average scores in highlighting, circling, and underling across paper and digital formats.

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

Test Score

15

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

highlighting

circling

underlying

Learning Technique

Figure 1. Average scores for learning techniques. A main effect across leaning technique in the
highlighting groups.

Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

120
100
80

Test Score

60
40
20
0

paper

digital
Format

Figure 2. Average scores for format. A main effect across format in the paper printed copy
groups.

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Running head: EFFECTS OF HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN LEARNING

120
100
80

Test Score

60

paper
digital

40
20
0

highlighting

circling

underlying

Learning Technique

Figure 3. An interaction across format and learning technique in the group that highlighted on
paper printed copies.

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