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Empirical studies have shown that in order to facilitate learning, balance is needed in colour applications for classrooms (Gaines & Curry, 2011). Researchers and teachers are interested to know ways to improve learning. This includes how the colour of paper may possibly help students have a better understanding and improve memory retention. 136 students from James Cook University participated in a study using various colour papers: white, blue and pink. The focus of this study is to examine the impact of colour on experience. The effectiveness of the various colour paper on learning was evaluated through analyzing the mean number of correct answers obtained by each condition group. The review of the findings suggest that students who did the test on blue paper performed significantly better than the students with white or pink paper. Thus, it is concluded that blue is the most effective colour paper for learning.

Keywords: learning, colour, performance

Effect of Colour on Perception and Psychological Functioning

Colour plays an important role in human perception. It communicates specific information and its meanings are derived from learned associations such as the colour red signalling danger; and biologically based inclination to respond to certain colours (Elliot, Maier, Moller, Friedman & Meinhardt, 2007). Various colours are presumed to have different associations, and looking at a colour may stimulate psychological responses consistent with these associations. Past studies have shown that specific colours trigger various emotions, elicit different responses and improves academic performance in students (Elliot, Maier, Moller, Friedman & Meinhardt, 2007).

Mehta and Zhu (2007) claimed that red and blue affect performance on detail-oriented and creative tasks with strong implications for test preparation and testing formats respectively. While the colour blue enhances creativity, pink may suppress aggressive behaviour in prisoners (Walker, 1991) and has a tranquilizing effect (Morton, 1998). Gaines and Curry (2011) reported that white and off-white environments are less productive.

Although scientific literatures commonly state as fact that long-wavelength colours are arousing and short wavelength colours are calming, the actual data is not supportive (Elliot, Maier, Moller, Friedman & Meinhardt, 2007). A number of studies have shown that students achieved higher scores on blue than red paper (Sinclair, Soldat & Mark, 1998). These researchers suggested that the colour red induces positive affect, stimulating a processing strategy that conserves cognitive resources. On the other hand, they suggested that the colour blue induces negative affect, stimulating detail-oriented processing that might be more effective when solving difficult problems. In contrast to these findings, Skinner (2004) reported that students scored higher on exams printed on red than on blue paper, with the highest scores achieved by students with white paper.

The difference in results between these two findings is likely due to several limitations. Firstly, due to the applied nature of the work, many studies have neglected to follow basic experimental procedures such as experimenter blindness to hypothesis. Secondly, many of the manipulations in these studies have been uncontrolled (e.g., presenting colour on an class wall for 4 days). Lastly, little existing research has examined the effect of hue while controlling for lightness and chroma, despite the fact that these other colour attributes can influence psychological functioning (Elliot, Maier, Moller, Friedman & Meinhardt, 2007).

The focus of this study was to investigate whether colour has an impact on experience, particularly student performance. With reference to existing research in this area, we attempted to replicate previously reported effects of primary-coloured paper and also tested whether pastel colours of paper affect test performance (Tal, Akers & Hodge, 2008). We presented ten multiple-choice questions based on Piaget's theory on cognitive development. Our concern was whether the effects found with primary colours also occur with pastel colours such as red and pink respectively. Our hypothesis in this experiment is that the primary cool colour (blue) group will perform better than other condition groups.

Method

Participants

136 psychology undergraduates (32 male, 104 female) from James Cook University participated in this study. The age of participants ranged from 18-40 years old (refer to Table 1 for demographics). They were randomly assigned to white, blue or pink-coloured question sheets. This experiment was conducted during tutorials.

Table 1

Demographics of participants

Design

The students were given ten minutes to complete ten multiple-choice questions based on Piaget's theory on cognitive development. The independent variable (IV) was the colour of paper: white, blue and pink. The dependent variable (DV) was the number of correct answers ranging from one to ten.

Materials

The test comprised of seven pages with the first two pages being a informed consent form and demographic information for students to indicate their gender and age. The pages were printed on white, blue and pink paper to examine the effects of a colour on experience.

Procedure

Participants were tested in separate tutorial groups with the experimenter present in the room. They were given instructions regarding the task and were reminded that there are no repercussions for their performance. Participants were given five choices varying from (a) to (e) for each question and were told to write their answers next to it. Each participant completed their task within the stipulated timing and checked their answers.

Results

The results of the experiment was collated and expressed in a table as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Performance of students indicated by the mean number of correct answers obtained across the condition groups.

Mean score refers to the average number of correct answers in the condition group. Thus a higher mean score would mean that most of the students in the group achieved a higher number of correct answers. As shown in Figure 1, participants in the blue condition group have a higher mean score of 8.07, indicating that they performed significantly better than participants in the pink condition and white condition group with mean scores of 6.53 and 6.15 respectively, which did not differ much from each other. Therefore, this suggests that blue paper is most effective in impacting student's performance.

The standard deviation of the number of correct answers obtained by each condition group is as follows: (Pink= 2.040, Blue= 1.643, White= 1.788). However, the difference in standard deviation is inconclusive because the number of participants in each condition group was inconsistent.

Discussion

The findings support the hypothesis that the blue condition group will perform better than the other two condition groups. This can be concluded from the results when participants with blue paper obtained the highest mean test score of 8.07.

The difference in brightness of colour may pose to be a limitation in this experiment. In this experiment, pastel colour (pink) was used and it was compared to a primary colour (blue) thus it may not be an accurate manipulation of condition since the experiment was not distinguished by white and primary colour conditions but pastel colour condition is included as well. This may explain the difference in test scores for the pink and blue group. In addition, a similar business study had concluded that using pastel colours may not affect student performance which explains the less significant results of students with the pink paper. Further research could be done on how the different brightness of colour affects student's performance. The various brightness of colour allows the experimenter to see the effect of colour on a standard scale, thus giving a more accurate representation whether pastel colours (pink) also has an effect on learning.

Furthermore, these participants should be conditioned properly so as to avoid any discrepancies in data collection. A student who had been in a cool-coloured classroom before participating in this study and given a white test paper may affect the accuracy of the findings compared to a student who had been in a cool-coloured classroom and was given the blue test paper. Therefore, participants should be in the same class for a period of time before sitting for the test.

Another limitation would be the large difference in male and female students assigned to each condition group, thus the findings may not prove to be a good representation of the population. For the white and pink groups, the ratio of males to females is about 1: 2.5 while the blue group has a ratio of 1: 5.4. Therefore, the three condition groups should have the same ratio of males to females.

In addition, Elliot, Maier, Moller, Friedman and Meinhardt (2007) have found that there are gender differences regarding mood in different coloured environments. This can be seen in the blue condition group where most male students obtained nine correct answers. Depression, confusion, and anger were experienced by females in spaces with colours of white, gray, and beige. Males experienced negative emotions in green, blue, purple, red, yellow, and orange spaces (Kwallek, Lewis, Lin-Hsiao & Woodson, 1996). Furthermore, more errors occurred on task performance in the white than in blue and red rooms. Therefore, the colour of the room that the test is conducted at should be of a neutral colour to reduce the effect of negative emotions that may affect the performance of participants.

References

Elliot, A., Maier, M., Moller, A., Friedman, R., & Meinhardt, J. (2007). Colour and psychological functioning: The effect of red on performance attainment. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(1), 154-168. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.136.1.154

Gaines, K. S., & Curry, Z. D. (2011). The inclusive classroom: The effects of colour on learning and behavior. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education, 29(1), 46-57. Available at http://www.natefacs.org/JFCSE/v29no1/v29no1Gaines.pdfA

Kwallek, N., Lewis, C., Lin-Hsiao, J., & Woodson, H. (1996). Effects of nine monochromatic office interior colors on clerical tasks and worker mood. Color Research & Application, 21(6), 448-458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1520-6378(199612)21:6<448::aid-col7>3.0.co;2-w

Mehta, R., & Zhu, R. (2009). Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances. Science, 323(5918), 1226-1229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1169144

Morton, J. (1998). Color voodoo for the office. Retrieved from Colorcom.com.

Sinclair, R., Soldat, A., & Mark, M. (1998). Affective Cues and Processing Strategy: Color-Coded Examination Forms Influence Performance. Teaching Of Psychology, 25(2), 130-132. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15328023top2502_14

Skinner, N. F. (2004). Differential test performance from differently colored paper: White paper works best. Teaching of Psychology, 31, 111–113.

Tal, I., Akers, K., & Hodge, G. (2008). Effect of Paper Color and Question Order on Exam Performance. Teaching Of Psychology, 35(1), 26-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00986280701818482

Walker, M. (1991). The Power of Color. New York: Avery Publishing Group.

Pink Blue White 6.5333333333333332 8.0666666666666664 6.1521739130434785

Mean number of correct answers