DESIGN MATTERS:COURSE DOCUMENT DESIGN’S EFFECT ON
LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS
Ryan Lege
Kanda University of International Studies
ABSTRACT
Literature in L1 learning contexts has indicated that thedesign of course documents can influence learner beliefs
and attitudes toward the teacher and the learning process(Wolfe et al., 2019). In immersive L2 learning contexts,
learners must navigate an additional layer of linguistic
complexity as they interact with course documents. The
current study explores the effect of course document
design on language learners’ perceptions of instructors andinstitutions in tertiary EFL classrooms. Three versions of asyllabus were created using differing degrees of document
design principles. A counterbalanced within-subjects design
was employed in which participants (N=56) were exposedto the different syllabi and asked for their impressions ofboth the author of the document and the university. Course
document design had significant impact on ratings of the
instructor and university, suggesting that language
learners’ perceptions and attitudes about a teacher andlearning context are influenced by course document design.
INTRODUCTION
Though design is considered “ubiquitous professional activity” (Jonassen,
2008, p. 138), it takes on radically different connotations andapplications depending on the contexts to which it is applied. For thefield of language teaching and learning, Aakhus’ (2007) definition ofdesign is particularly applicable: “An activity of transforming something
given into something preferred through intervention and invention”(2007, p. 112). Fundamentally, design is a deliberate process applied to
improve some default condition. Education is constantly in a design loop,
iteratively reaching for the next preferred state in response to changing
contexts and societal needs. Many variables contribute to either the
success or failure of educational models, making this design process
particularly difficult, but as variables are isolated and studied it ispossible to progress towards a more ideal outcome.
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One such specific variable, texts, are a key part of virtually any
educational model or practice and are often the primary means by which
information is conveyed between stakeholders. Though texts can comein many forms and be presented in different mediums, documents areperhaps their most common form. Fundamentally, “the general purposeor ‘function’ of a document is to store data produced by a sender in a
symbolic form to facilitate transfer to a receiver” (Doermann et al.,1998, p. 799). In educational contexts, the sender is often an instructor
who is providing content or information to a receiver, the learner. If thistransfer of information is successful, teaching and learning can takeplace more smoothly and fulfil learning outcomes. However, not all
documents are designed well, and some may even cause confusion or be
an impediment to the learning process. Materials design may be an
important contributing factor to either the success or failure of an
educational endeavor.
Document Design and Education
Materials design is often approached in teacher training courses but isoften not a core part of these programs. As a result, few teachers
possess design expertise (Huizinga et al., 2013). However, out ofnecessity, many teachers design documents for their learning contexts,
but without suitable skills and training it is difficult to ensure that these
documents are fulfilling their purpose well. In light of this issue, drawing
on the field of document design is particularly instructive. “Document
design is the theory, research and practice of creating comprehensible,usable, and persuasive texts” (Schriver, 1997, p. 316). The results of
document design can be seen in well-designed forms, instructions, andtechnical documents. Though document design clearly could be
beneficial in educational settings, its principles are often not taught orpracticed in these contexts. Indeed, though visual rhetoric isconclusively identified as a key part of shaping the meaning of texts(Felten, 2008), most first-year L1 writing instructors overlook document
design, both in their instruction and in the documents that they produce
for their students (Wolfe et al., 2019). Though these observations are
directly concerned with L1 university composition classes, not language
learning in ESL of EFL contexts, the conclusions are perhaps even more
applicable for language teachers, as document design or visual rhetoric
is not a standard part of many teacher-education courses or curriculaand is not a part of every teacher’s skill set.
Why then is it worth looking at document design for language learners?
Smith (2017) notes that document design helps readers find theinformation they need to complete tasks with minimal effort. Wolfe et al.
(2019) also remark that course documents using document designprinciples can help students “understand assignment objectives” andestablish “a student-centered ethos in the classroom” (p. 146).
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Understanding of a text can also be facilitated by using features such as
topic headings to localize or group information into more memorable,salient chunks (Hyönä & Lorch, 2004; Ganier, 2004; McCabe et al.,2006). Kumpf (2000) further elucidates the importance of arranging text
in distinct visual parts that “allow the readers to process the content inparts, rather than as a continuous flow of text without breaks” (p. 409).
The ultimate goal of document design is “about making complex
information seem accessible and credible” (Moys, 2017, p. 14).
Improving the accessibility of a text for language learners who are
already devoting considerable cognitive resources to processing andparsing the text (Morishima, 2013) is a simple way to support them as
they engage with a text.
Course documents that use document design principles are not only
more effective at communicating content, but researchers in L1 contexts
have found that they can have a marked effect on attitudes andperceptions of the course, the learner’s role, and perceptions of the
instructor (Ishiyama & Hartlaub, 2002). Wolff et al. (2019) make thefollowing observation about their research into the effects of design on
writing prompts:
What took us by surprise was how often students madeinferences about the personality of the instructor based on
the design. Students found instructors of visually
informative documents to be younger, more enthusiastic,
and all-around someone from whom they would be more
likely to want to take a class (p. 154).
This observation is not isolated, as other researchers have also foundthat syllabi are linked to perceptions of instructors (Harrington &Gabert-Quillan, 2015). Wolfe et al. (2019) even make the decisive
assertion that “our classroom documents establish a relationshipbetween us and our students” (p. 152).
Of course, perceptions of the ethos of an instructor are not completely
formed based on the design of a document; language choice (Ishiyama& Hartlaub, 2002; McCabe et al., 2006; McCroskey & Teven, 1999;
Perrine et al., 1995) and length (Harrington & Gabert-Quillan, 2015)
have also been shown to influence learner perceptions and beliefs.
Though many factors are in play, the visual rhetoric of teacher-authoreddocuments is immediately salient to students and plays a part in theirprocess of assessing their educational context and instructor.
Notwithstanding the importance of visual rhetoric, there has been little
research in the language education field examining the intricacies of
document design and its effects on learners. One exception is input
enhancement (Sharwood-Smith, 1993), which is the practice of using
typographical or design cues to make language features or structures
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Lege, R. (2023). Design Matters: Course document design’s effect on language
learners’ perceptions. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 90-109. English Language Institute, KUIS.

more salient for learners. Input enhancement has been used to explore
how some features of the visual design of a text, such as bolding,highlighting, or text- size manipulation can influence the acquisition of
linguistic structures. While there have been many positive results(Fukuya & Clark, 2001; White, 1998; Wong, 2005; Zyzik & Pascual,2015), other studies have also found that input enhancement techniques
have either had no effect or a negative one (Jourdenais et al., 1995;
Leow et al., 2003; Reinders & Ellis, 2009). Han et al. (2008), in a review
of input enhancement studies, note that the complex nature of textual
enhancement may be the cause for these mixed results. It is notably
difficult, as these results indicate, to isolate design factors that impact
language learning. However, it is possible to reliably investigate theeffects of design on attitudes and beliefs of students about their course
and instructors.
Course documents are not only an important medium for communicating
information, but as the literature indicates, also important forestablishing instructor ethos and credibility. Subtext concerning thecourse and instructor are communicated both through the content andthe design of documents. Poorly designed documents can “disturb
interpersonal relationships” or “create a negative image of an institution”(de Stadler, 2003, p. 42). Just how this affects language learners is
worthy of investigation, as language learners have their own uniquechallenges when dealing with texts in an additional language. Syllabi, if
designed well, should communicate information clearly to learners while
simultaneously helping establish the ethos of instructors and setting
expectations for the course. The current study investigated the effect ofcourse document design on learners through the following researchquestions:
RQ 1. What effect does syllabus design have on language learners’
perceptions of the (1) instructor and (2) their educational institution
in a post-secondary EFL environment?
RQ 2. What document design features most influence learnerperceptions of their teacher or institution?
METHOD
Syllabus Design
Based on the considerable body of literature investigating theimportance and effects of syllabi in L1 contexts (Harrington &Gabert-Quillan, 2015; Ishiyama & Hartlaub, 2002; Myers, 2004; Perrine
et al., 1995), the researcher chose to use syllabi as the focus of thestudy. A simple English composition class course syllabus was sourced as
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a baseline for this study, hereafter referred to as “Syllabus 1”. Syllabus 1
features extremely simple formatting. While it adopts some document
design features, such as headings that break up the text into sections,the headings themselves are not differentiated or made to stand out
either by bolding or a font size increase. Essentially, it is what could becharacterized as a “low effort” (Belcak, 2020) document. The syllabus is
set in Times New Roman, “the font that has become the standard for
professional and educational communication” (Bean, 2015, p. 25),
12-point (Figure 1).
Syllabus 1 provided the lexical content for all three of the syllabi. Boththe second and third version of the syllabus contained the same content,
only formatted differently using design principles. Despite formattingchanges, the length of all the syllabi were kept consistent at one page to
avoid influencing student perceptions based on length as demonstrated
by Harrington and Gabert-Quillen (2015).
Figure 1. Portion of Syllabus 1

The first variation, referred to as Syllabus 2, used document designprinciples to help the document better match the purpose of a syllabus,
which is to communicate course information efficiently and effectively andserve as an easily accessible reference about the course. According to
Doermann, Rivlin, & Rosenfeld (1998), documents can be categorized into
three basic categories: reading, browsing, or searching. As syllabi often
need to be referred to after initial exposure, particular attention needs tobe given to the browsing and searching aspects. To address this in
Syllabus 2, the hierarchical organization of the text was strengthened byadding emphasis and a point-size increase to the headings, with the aim
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Lege, R. (2023). Design Matters: Course document design’s effect on language
learners’ perceptions. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 90-109. English Language Institute, KUIS.

of creating a more “modular organization” that “facilitates localization of
information” (Ganier, 2004, p. 23). Easily identifiable headings also serve
the purpose of chunking or “arranging text into distinct visual parts”(Kumpf, 2000), which is important as it allows readers to easily browse or
search for relevant content. Hyönä and Lorch (2004) highlight theimportance of a strong heading structure, stating that “the presence ofheadings may help readers to construct a more accurate and complete
representation of the topic structure with the consequence that text recall
is better” (p. 4). Headings and font size have also been shown to be afactor in increasing learner motivation to engage with a text (McCabe etal., 2006). Aside from the adjustments to make the headings moresalient, the hierarchy was strengthened by applying a consistent leftalignment within a strong grid system (Lupton, 2014).
Figure 2. Portion of Syllabus 2

Additionally, the font used on the syllabus was changed from the serif
font, Times New Roman, to the sans-serif font, Calibri. Calibri waschosen for its ubiquity as a default font (much like Times News Roman),
which lends it familiarity while avoiding distinctive or distracting
features. Mead and Hardesty (2017) note that both Times New Roman
and Calibri are characterized fluent fonts, meaning that they allow
readers to easily process content because they are not distinctive
enough to distract the reader from the content itself. Conversely,
disfluent fonts, or those that distract the reader from the content, can be
useful because they cause a reader to devote more mental resources toprocess the text, causing them to slow down, which has been shown toincrease recall and test performance (Oppenheimer et al., 2010). As thecurrent study was designed to focus more on participants’ overall
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judgments and perceptions, rather than their recall of information, fluent
fonts were chosen. Both fonts, Times New Roman and Calibri, have been
employed as defaults in the popular word-processing software Microsoft
Office, thereby increasing the likelihood that participants had both been
exposed to and were comfortable with reading in the fonts. The switchfrom serif to sans-serif was made for Syllabus 2 and 3 to better alignwith the purpose of the document, as sans-serif fonts have been foundby some literature to be more suitable for scanning (Krause, 2016)
whilst serif fonts may be better for extended reading (Williams, 2006),
which is not the purpose of syllabi. Figure 2 shows the overall designchanges of Syllabus 2.
The final version, Syllabus 3, was created using the same basic
principles as Syllabus 2, but with more attention placed on the aesthetic
features of the syllabus, which included both color and imagery. One ofthe purposes of the third version was to ascertain whether the additionof decorative design elements would influence participants’ perceptions.
In a study comparing perceptions of syllabi length and use of images,
Harrington & Gabert-Quillen (2015) concluded that when compared toclearly important factors such as overall organization, white space, andlarge bold headings that “the use of images…did not add much value” (p.
8). The researcher wanted to see if this was not only true for L1
students, but for the case for language learners as well. Syllabus 3 wasalso further split into smaller chunks by including a dual-column layout,with borders clearly separating sections of the text. Headings were also
placed in vertical orientation to increase font disfluency (Cacali, 2016),
Figure 3. Portion of Syllabus 3

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causing readers to devote more mental resources to processing them
(Hyönä & Lorch, 2004), further supporting the chunked structure. Figure
3 shows the overall structure of Syllabus 3.
ParticipantsParticipants (N=56) were selected from second-year students in theInternational Communications department of a private Japaneseinternational university. Participants’ first language was Japanese andwere predominantly female (N=50). All participants received a bilingual
explanation of the research, their involvement, and the associated risks.
The participants indicated their consent on a bilingual consent form inaccordance with the university’s research ethics policy.
Procedure
Each participant was given a folder containing all three variations of thesyllabus in random order. On an iPad, participants opened the research
instrument,anonlinesurveyhostedbyQualtrics(https://www.qualtrics.com/). After reading the research description andagreeing to the consent form, each participant was asked to confirm
that all three versions of the syllabus were contained in their folder. As
participants would need to rate each version of the document, it was
crucial that they would be able to identify the correct syllabus that eachblock of the survey referred to. This was accomplished by adding acolor-coded banner to the top of each syllabus that was also used in the
online survey itself to identify each syllabus. Each banner also featured avisual icon and a title (the name of an animal). The researcher avoided
labeling the surveys with a letter or number, as participants could
mistakenly infer that the quality of the syllabus correlated with theassigned number or letter.
Following their confirmation of the materials, participants were
presented a block of questions about one of the syllabi. A
within-subjects design was selected as the research design for this study
to allow for comparison of participants’ ratings of the three syllabi. Thiswas counterbalanced by randomizing the order in which the syllabi were
presented to each participant. Participants completed the same block ofquestions about each of the three syllabi. In each block, there wereseven statements. Participants indicated their agreement with thestatements (designated S1 through S7) on a 5-point Likert scale ranging
from strongly disagree to strongly agree (Table 1).

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Table 1 Statements Used to Rate Each Syllabus
Statement stem

Criteria

Designation

The teacher who created the NAME (color)

professional

S1

prepared

S2

caringS3

good at teaching

S4high level

S5

beautifulS6

a good place to

S7document is…

The university where the NAME (color) document
is used is…

study

After participants completed their ratings of each syllabus, they were
presented with two final holistic items. The first asked them to rank thethree syllabi from best to worst, and the final item was an open-ended
question that asked participants to explain their rationale for both thehighest-ranked and lowest-ranked document. The average time tocomplete the entire survey was 8 minutes.
Analysis
Responses to the Likert scale questions were assigned point values from- 2 to 2 points with negative values representing the “strongly disagree”
and “disagree” and positive values representing “agree” and “strongly
agree”. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (rANOVA) was used tocompare the mean values of participants’ ratings for the three different
syllabi.
The rankings data were also codified into numerical values, the worstranked syllabus assigned 0, the middle 1, and the highest ranked
syllabus being assigned 2. The ranking question was analyzed using a
Wilcoxon sign-ranked test as the ordinal data compared three matchedpairs (Syllabus 1 & Syllabus 2, Syllabus 1 & Syllabus 3, and Syllabus 2 &Syllabus 3), the distribution of which are symmetrical in shape.
Furthermore, open-ended responses were thematically codified. An
independent rater completed the coding process, and the Pearson
correlation coefficient was calculated at r = 0.898.

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RESULTS
Ratings of the Teacher
Participant agreement that the teacher who created the syllabus wasprofessional, F(2, 110) = 10.890, p = 0.000, prepared, F(2, 110) =19.317, p = 0.000, caring, F(2, 110) = 35.248, p = 0.000, and good atteaching, F(2, 110) = 24.269, p = 0.000, were all statically significant. A
Bonferroni post-hoc analysis was performed to show the difference
between pairs of the three syllabi, revealing significant difference on themean values between Syllabus 1 and both Syllabus 2 and Syllabus 3,
but not between Syllabus 2 and Syllabus 3 (Table 2).
Table 2. Pairwise Results for Statements about the Teacher

Syllabus
Pair

Professional(S1)

Prepared (S2)Caring (S3)Good at teaching
(S4)

MD

Sig.

MD

Sig.

MD

Sig.

MD

Sig.

1

2

0.857*

0.000

0.839*

0.000

1.482*

0.000

1.214*

0.000

1

3

0.554*

0.026

0.982*

0.000

1.429*

0.000

1.179*

0.000

2

3

0.304

0.194

0.143

1.000

0.054

1.000

0.036

1.000

*Significance at the 0.05 level

Ratings of the University
Participant ratings were not statistically different with regards toparticipants’ agreement with the statement that the university was highlevel, F(2, 110) = 1.701, p = 0.187. However, the results weresignificant for the university is beautiful, F(2, 110) = 37.016, p = 0.000,
and a good place to study. F(2, 110) = 14.272, p = 0.000. A Bonferroni
test indicated that for significant items, the difference again was foundbetween Syllabus 1 and both Syllabus 2 and 3, but not between Syllabus
2 and 3 (Table 3).
Table 3. Pairwise Results for Statements about the Institution
High level (S5)
Syllabus Pair
1
2
1
3
2
3

MD
0.357
0.143
0.214

Sig.
0.185
1.000
0.183

A good place to study
(S6)
MD
Sig.
1.321*
0.000
1.607*
0.000
0.286
0.427

Beautiful (S7)MD
0.929*
0.839*
0.0890

Sig.
0.000
0.000
1.000

*Significance at the 0.05 level

Ranking of the Three Syllabi
The Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that there was a significant
difference in the rankings assigned by participants to Syllabus 1 and99
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Syllabus 2 (Z = -6.076, p = 0.000) and between Syllabus 1 and Syllabus
3 (Z = -5.242, p = 0.000). The test did not elicit a statisticallysignificant difference between Syllabus 2 and Syllabus 3 (Z = -1.397, p= 0.162). Descriptive statistics showed considerable variation in themean values between Syllabus 1 (0.21) and the other two syllabi,
Syllabus 2 (1.50) and Syllabus 3 (1.29). Remember that the syllabi wereranked on a scale from 0 to 2 (Table 4).
Table 4. Descriptive Statistics for Syllabus Ranking Item
Score distribution numbers
Document

Mean
score

0
(Worst)1

2 (Best)Syllabus 1

.21

46

8

2

Syllabus 2

1.50

2

24

30

Syllabus 3

1.29

8

24

24

Open-ended Comments
Thematic analysis of the comments yielded several common threads. For
this study, categories were only considered a “theme” if there were threeor more comments (see Hagaman & Wutich, 2016, p. 27). Since
participants only provided comments related to their highest and lowest
ranked syllabi, the number of comments respective to each syllabus isdifferent from the total number of participants in the study.
Table 5. Open-ended Comment Themes for Syllabus 1
Themes from best rankings

NumberTotal number of rankings as best

2 (3.6%)No themes
Themes from worst rankings

NumberTotal number of rankings as worst

46 (82.1%)

Hard

18

Too many words

10

Lack of emphasis

9

Lack of clarity

3

Poor font choice8

Couldn’t understand important things

4

Poor layout/organization

6

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Syllabus 1 received the highest number of negative evaluations, 46(82.1%) participants ranked it as “worst”, with only two participants(3.6%) indicating that they thought it was the best. Frequent themes
included that it appeared “hard” (18), there were “too many words”(10), and that there was a “lack of emphasis” (9) in the syllabus. Less
frequent themes and the number of times each appeared in thecomments are summarized in Table 5.
Of all three syllabi, Syllabus 2 was the most positively evaluated, with30 (53.5%) participants indicating that it was the “best”. The mostcommon rationales for this ranking were “organization and layout” (11),“easy to understand” (11), and “easy to read” (11). “Simplicity” and“font choice” also emerged as themes in participant responses, albeit
less frequently. The frequency of all themes can be found in Table 6.
Table 6. Open-ended Comment Themes for Syllabus 2
Themes from best rankings

NumberTotal number of rankings as best

30 (53.5%)

Organization/layout

11

Easy to understand11

Easy to read11

Simplicity

6

Font choice4

Themes from worst rankings

NumberTotal number of rankings as worst
None

2 (3.6%)

Syllabus 3 was the most divisive. 24 (42.8%) participants indicated that it
was the “best”, and 8 (14.2%) reporting that it was the worst. Rationales
for ranking it as the best included the following themes: “Organizationand layout” (8), “easy to read” (7), “easy to understand” (5), and “goodemphasis” (4). On the other hand, of the eight participants who indicatedthat they felt that it was the worst, 3 indicated that they felt it was “notsuitable for purpose” (see Table 7).
DISCUSSION
Overall, the data show that participants rated both the instructor and theinstitution differently depending on the version of the syllabus.
Participant evaluation of statements concerning the instructor (theteacher is professional, prepared, caring, and good at teaching) were all101
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learners’ perceptions. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 90-109. English Language Institute, KUIS.

statistically significant, with pairwise analysis showing a strong
difference between Syllabus 1 and the other two syllabi. The findings fallin line with the literature that suggest that course documents influence
student perceptions of their instructor. The same trend of participants
ranking items differently between Syllabus 1 and the other two syllabi
was also evident in their ratings of the university as beautiful and a goodplace to study.
Table 7. Open-ended Comment Themes for Syllabus 3
Themes from best rankings

NumberTotal number of rankings as best

24 (42.8%)

Organization/layout

8

Easy to read7

Easy to understand5

Emphasis

4

Themes from worst rankings

NumberTotal number of rankings as worst

8 (14.2%)

Not suitable for purpose

3

The reasons for the difference between Syllabus 1 and the other syllabi,
and similarity between Syllabus 2 and Syllabus 3, can be traced to somefundamental differences in their design, which is corroborated byparticipants’ open-ended responses. One of the fundamental differences
between Syllabus 1 and the others is a lack of clear organizationalfeatures such as emphasized section headings that divide the syllabus
into sections. Though Syllabus 1 does have section headings and whitespace after each section, both other syllabi featured an increase in fontsize and the use of bold text to make them stand out from the bodytext. The most common theme in participant comments about both
Syllabus 2 and 3 was that they had good organization and layout, with
Syllabus 2 receiving 11 comments and Syllabus 3 receiving 8 comments.
One participant remarked that “[Syllabus 2] is organized and I canunderstand the content easily at a glance”. Participant comments seemto support Deming’s (1994) view that “format is perhaps the mostessential element in document design. It enables the reader to see
immediately the structure, hierarchy, and major content sections of adocument” (“Format”, para. 1).
A second major difference between Syllabus 1 and the other two
versions was the font type classification. Syllabus 1 used a serif font,Times New Roman, while the other versions used the sans serif font102
Lege, R. (2023). Design Matters: Course document design’s effect on language
learners’ perceptions. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 90-109. English Language Institute, KUIS.

Calibri. In hindsight, the research design of the study could have been
improved by unifying the font of all three versions of the syllabus toeliminate this as a potential cause for the differing ratings between
Syllabus 1 and the other syllabi, allowing the study to better focus on
the organizational and layout or hierarchical principles of document
design. As it stands, it is clear from comments about Syllabus 1 thatparticipants considered Syllabus 1 to have a “poor font choice” (8comments) and “too many words” (10 comments), though in the case of
the latter, the number of words on each syllabus were the same. In
contrast, regarding Syllabus 2, four participants remarked positively
about the font. Regarding Syllabus 3, font type was not mentioned byparticipants, suggesting that organizational/layout factors may havebeen more important.
Another interesting finding is the lack of statistical difference between
Syllabus 2 and Syllabus 3. Though Syllabus 2 was marginally more
highly rated, it did not approach statistical significance. Both Syllabus 2
and 3 used document design principles to clearly segment sections of
the document with large bold headings. As a result of the clear groupingof information, there is also more perceptible white space around items.
White space is important as it helps the reader feel that the text is more
comfortable and accessible (see Lupton, 2014). Additionally, Syllabus 3
contained color, a picture, and borders clearly separating each section of
the syllabus. Surprisingly, only one participant commented on the
picture, while none mentioned the color; but this is in line with thefindings of Harrington and Gabert-Quillan (2015) that images possibly“did not add much value” (p. 8). It seems to indicate that there arediminishing returns or even detrimental effects if too many stylistic
differentiations are applied to a text. This seems to suggest that there
may be a happy medium when designing documents, a moderate levelof textual formatting rather than exaggerated differentiation that could
be perceived as negative attention- seeking features by readers (seeMoys, 2017, p. 10). Some participants even remarked that Syllabus 3
was “not suitable for purpose”, which emerged as a theme from thecomments (3 total mentions). One participant said, “I feel this document
focuses on design rather than the importance of telling information.”
This suggests that if effort is devoted to ensuring that course documents
have a clear structure of headings and emphasize important information,
additional embellishments and differentiations may simply besuperfluous for university course syllabi.
Only one item, “the university is high level” did not reach statisticalsignificance, and no differences were observed between the threesyllabi. Interestingly, the reason for this may be found in the
open-ended responses. The degree to which a university is high-level isoften correlated with difficulty in part because of the entrance exam
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Lege, R. (2023). Design Matters: Course document design’s effect on language
learners’ perceptions. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 90-109. English Language Institute, KUIS.

system (Kuramoto & Koizumi, 2018), so a course document perceived asdifficult would fit well within that paradigm. The most common themes inparticipant comments about Syllabus 1 were that it was “hard”, at 18
comments, and had “too many words”, at 10 comments. Based on theirimpression that the syllabus was hard or difficult to read, participants
may have connected it with their impression that high-level universities
are difficult.
Limitations
Based on the data collected from the participant population of this study,
broad conclusions cannot be made about the effect of document designon language learner’s perceptions of their teacher and university. Moreresearch is needed to test with other populations having different L1s orfrom different educational contexts. Furthermore, the participants were
all second-year students at the university, whose personal experienceswith university education may have informed their opinions. Their
exposure to both well-designed and poorly-designed course materials
over their university career may have influenced their perceptions ofeach syllabus. Administering the study to first-year students may reduce
the potential inference from participant experiences.
Furthermore, as mentioned previously, the data from the study does notconclusively find which features of document design contributed to thedifference in ratings. While organization and layout are important, thedegree to which the font type influenced ratings is an issue in the study.
Based on the available data, this is not easily quantifiable, reducing thecertainty of conclusions about the layout and organization. Further
research is needed to isolate specific features of document design that
influence student perceptions of their teacher and institution.
CONCLUSION
The current study echoes findings in L1 settings that course documents
influence student perceptions of their learning context. The design ofcourse documents can influence perceptions positively or negatively of
their instructor and their institution. Syllabi that are administered at the
beginning of a course, are especially of interest as the perceptions andimpressions created by these documents could color student perceptions
for an extended time. Whether these are administered on paper, or
through an online course management system, students will makejudgments partially based on their design. Lingaard et al. (2006) makethe astute assumption that “in the presence of a very positive first
impression, a person may disregard or downplay possible negative
issues encountered later” (p. 115). Establishing instructor ethos andrapport with students as early in the progression of a course as possible
will lead to more positive experiences and outcomes. While this is a104
Lege, R. (2023). Design Matters: Course document design’s effect on language
learners’ perceptions. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 90-109. English Language Institute, KUIS.

complex, multi-faceted process, each factor that is isolated anddemonstrated to have a role in this process aids instructors in improving
their experience and that of their students.
The findings of this study also highlight the importance of consideringknowledge and best practices from other fields to improve practicewithin one’s own. Though document design is often perceived to be
useful for technical communication, instruction manuals, and forms, italso has clear applications in education, specifically in language
education. However, without concerted effort to demonstrate its
importance and promote attention to design in educational communities,changing practices will be difficult. Teacher education programs andprofessional development initiatives should incorporate training about
the role of design in supporting the teaching and learning process.
Educators with experience in design need to have opportunities to share
their valuable skill set with their peers. With more attention to theimpact of design in education on both research and practice, theexperiences of both teachers and students will be improved. The practiceof teaching and learning will be enhanced as we incorporate theexpertise, knowledge, and research from other fields or disciplines.
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