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Although participants said that thought the updateable glossary was a great idea very few of them used it at all. They explained that because they would not be able to use the altered entries again there was an incentive not to waste their time with it, but in a longer study or in their real life they expected that they would be interested in using such a tool.
Participants who used the glossary tool had significantly higher comprehension scores than participants without a glossary tool (t=5.505, df=39, p<0.05). The presence of a glossary improves reading comprehension, at least in the short term.
Participants who used the glossary tool were slower at answering the post-task questions (t=2.550, df=39, p<0.05). We speculate that this is because they understood more and so had more to say in their answers.
No significant difference was found between the time to read with or without a glossary tool. Since this was a within-subjects comparison there is strong evidence that the presence of a well-designed glossary tool, like ours, can improve readers understanding of a text without making them take more time to read.
References for all works cited are available in a separate chunk.
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