Effectiveness of Student-Constructed Diagrams Versus Self-Explanation Instruction

• In Event: Visual Displays

Abstract

Fostering student self-explanation in drawings and teaching students to make drawings are effective methods for increasing diagram comprehension. However, it is unclear whether student-constructed drawing is beneficial because is is a) generative, b) visual, or c) increases inferences. We compared student-constructed visual (SCVis), student-constructed verbal (SCVerb), and self-explanation (SelfExpl) treatments with 137 high school biology students. Results suggest equal, significant, positive effects of all treatments on biology diagram comprehension, but significantly less growth in biology knowledge and geoscience diagram comprehension for the SCVis treatment. Our results suggest that benefits found in prior research are due to the drawing aspect rather than due to generativity per se. We close with implications for theory and instruction.

Authors

• Jennifer G. Cromley, Temple University

• Bradley W. Bergey, Temple University

• Shannon L. Fitzhugh, Temple University

• Theodore W. Wills, Temple University

• Mandy Kirchgessner, Temple University

• Nora Newcombe, Temple University