Good news and bad news about showing movies concerning historical events to students. The good news is that a film based on a historical event seems to increase student engagement and retention of information. The bad news is that the information they retain quite likely wrong.
That’s the upshot of an interesting study highlighted by Dan Willingham on the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog. Researchers at Washington University gave undergraduates nine texts, all accurate. “For six of the texts, there was an accompanying film clip; three were fully accurate, but three had an inaccuracy and thus contradicted the text,” Willingham writes.
Some of the subjects got a general warning about potential inaccuracies in Hollywood movies. Some got the same warning but the inaccuracy in a particular film clip was specified, and the correct information was provided. Some of the subjects were not given any warning at all.”
So what happened?
Watching the film plus reading a text led to better memory than the text alone, and students expressed greater interest in texts when there was a movie to go along with it. However, watching the movies “led people to remember the incorrect information at fairly high levels,” says Willingham. “Between a third and half of the time, people answered a question by using the inaccurate information from the movie, rather than accurate information from the text.”
But what about that warning to beware of inaccuracies? It was only effective if it pinpointed the exact inaccuracy. A general warning had no effect.
“Teachers may dislike the idea of using movies in their classrooms that contain inaccuracies, but if they decide to show them to students, they can negate the danger that students will misremember the incorrect information by providing specific information about what is inaccurate,” Willingham concludes.



