The brief:
This study looks for an answer to the question: Does screen size affect the degree to which viewers engage with a movie?
What I did:
I conducted an experiment where 60 volunteers were split into two groups of 30. Each group viewed the Independence Day Resurgence trailer before filling in the ‘Sense of Presence Inventory’ (SOPI) questionnaire. One group viewed the movie trailer on a 5-inch mobile device, while the other group viewed the same movie trailer on a 21-inch desktop display.
ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory (SOPI) Questionnaire
I collated the answers relating to the engagement sections of the questionnaire using Excel. Specifically, SOPI questions A1, A3, A4, A5, and A6 related to engagement levels after the task had been completed, and questions B1, B2, B3, B8, B16, B17, B30, and B32 related to engagement levels during the task. This provided four sets of results comprising the 60 samples collated. Those for the large screen engagement during and after the task and those for the small screen engagement during and after the task.
The outcome:
You can read the Screen Engagement Study (PDF), but in summary, I conducted a ‘Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances t-test’ to provide the necessary inferential statistics using a standard alpha of 0.05.
It made sense that screen size becomes irrelevant after viewers have watched a movie. Although the mean was slightly higher for small screen. In comparison, engagement levels during the task showed a significant difference, supporting the hypothesis.
The results indicate the mean for small screen engagement is significantly higher with a good probability and level significantly smaller than the 5% alpha set. It is surprising that the small screen and not the large screen proved more engaging.