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The Value of Voice

By Lisa Neal, Mark Notess / December 2005

TYPE: OPINION
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Many online courses provide text and optional audio of someone reading the text in a well-modulated voice. Can this audio track deliver any pedagogical value?

Online courses are not intended to serve as entertainment, yet these voices are oddly reminiscent of Morgan Freeman narrating March of the Penguins—pleasant to listen to and a bit hypnotic. The voices speak slowly and enunciate well and are not meant to supplement course information but merely deliver the text without the emphasis or enthusiasm that might add meaning to it. For example, in a recent course from the American Medical Association, the voice did not place any additional emphasis on words like "risk" and "pain." There was no obvious credit for the voice source, and the reader was almost certainly not a subject matter expert. But using a reader identified as an expert might add not only meaningful inflection, but credibility and authenticity.

Because people read faster than they listen to the same text, use of the audio track means courses take longer to complete, which students don't appreciate. But the main reason to avoid gratuitous text-reading is that learners just don't like to lose control over pacing, skipping, and browsing. And, if they do look at the text while listening, their eyes invariably move to a different section than the one being read aloud, causing interference. There are times, however, when an audio track proves beneficial:

  • If the person doing the voiceover is a personality of interest to the learners, the audio can be interesting in its own right. Still, learners may want to skip to the transcript after the novelty of hearing (and preferably seeing) the expert or celebrity has worn off.
  • When the text's reading level is greater than the reader's literacy level or when the reader is a non-native speaker, the audio component may be very helpful. Two examples that do this effectively are a course for Alzheimer's caregivers that targets high- and low-literacy learners in both Spanish and English, and a history course for elementary school children that similarly assumes not all students are strong readers.
  • If speaking is a component of what is being learned, the audio will be essential. Language-learning and public speaking are two obvious examples of this category.
There may be additional scenarios where an audio track is worthwhile. But in any case, the combination of text and audio has become the de facto standard for self-paced online courses without clear justification. Research is needed to examine the laboratory findings of verbal redundancy researchers like Richard Mayer to determine how different e-learning designs affect learners in real course contexts, where the distractions and pressures of real life sometimes sabotage the good intentions of instructional designers. Additionally, we would like to hear learner feedback on the value of voice, since, in conversation with friends and colleagues, we have yet to find anyone who prefers to listen than read in an online course. The current popularity of podcasting for e-learning shows that many people like to listen, but that may be true mostly when text is not an option-or when mobility or the unique qualities of the speaker are paramount.



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ADDITIONAL READING

    Lisa Neal
  1. Predictions For 2003
  2. Q&A
  3. Blended conferences
  4. Predictions for 2002
  5. How to get students to show up and learn
  6. Learning from e-learning
  7. Storytelling at a distance
  8. Q&A with Don Norman
  9. Talk to me
  10. Q&A with Diana Laurillard
  11. Do it yourself
  12. Degrees by mail
  13. Predictions for 2004
  14. In search of simplicity
  15. eLearning and fun
  16. Everything in moderation
  17. The basics of e-learning
  18. Is it live or is it Memorex?
  19. Predictions for 2006
  20. Five Questions...for Christopher Dede
  21. Five Questions... for John Seely Brown
  22. Five questions...for Shigeru Miyagawi
  23. "Deep" thoughts
  24. 5 questions... for Richard E. Mayer
  25. Designing usable, self-paced e-learning courses
  26. Want better courses?
  27. Just "DO IT"
  28. Five questions...
  29. Formative evaluation
  30. Senior service
  31. Blogging to learn and learning to blog
  32. My life as a Wikipedian
  33. Five questions...for Elliott Masie
  34. The stripper and the bogus online degree
  35. Five questions...for Lynn Johnston
  36. Five questions...for Tom Carey
  37. Not all the world's a stage
  38. Five questions...for Karl M. Kapp
  39. Five questions...for Larry Prusack
  40. Five questions...for Seb Schmoller
  41. Do distance and location matter in e-learning?
  42. Why do our K-12 schools remain technology-free?
  43. Music lessons
  44. Learn to apologize for fun and profit
  45. Of web hits and Britney Spears
  46. Advertising or education?
  47. Five questions…for Matt DuPlessie
  48. Back to the future
  49. Serious games for serious topics
  50. Five (or six) questions...for Irene McAra-McWilliam
  51. Learner on the Orient Express
  52. "Spot Learning"
  53. Q&A with Saul Carliner
  54. When will e-learning reach a tipping point?
  55. Online learning and fun
  56. Mark Notess
  57. Learning Technologies Then and Now