Design Principles for the Integration of Visual and Verbal Information in a Math Curriculum

• In Event: Bridging Research and Practice: From Cognitive Principles to Design Principles of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Abstract

The amount of information that a learner can simultaneously attend to and process deeply is extremely limited (Mayer, 2002; Miller, 1956). Splitting attentional resources is cognitively demanding and is marked by difficulties in storing and processing information that is physically separated (e.g., Mayer, 2001; Mayer & Moreno, 1998; Sweller et al., 1998). When individual sources of information are visually integrated, student learning is improved (Chandler & Sweller, 1992, 1996; Mayer & Anderson, 1991, 1992). Adding relevant diagrams and pictures to text-based materials leads to better learning than text alone (e.g., Clark & Mayer, 2003). Graphics and verbal descriptions can be effectively combined in instructional materials by highlighting relationships using proximity (Clark & Mayer, 2003; Larkin & Simon, 1987), color (Ainsworth, 2006), and connections such as arrows (Heiser & Tversky, 2006). In math, students learn more when using visual representations of core concepts (e.g., Griffin, Case, & Siegler, 1994; Kalchman & Koedinger, 2005; Moss, 2005). Relevance is important. Distracting or ‘seductive’ images that are engaging but tangentially related to the topic at hand will increase cognitive load unnecessarily (e.g., Harp & Mayer, 1998) and hamper performance.

The Practice Guide specifically recommends “teachers combine graphical presentations (e.g., graphs, figures) that illustrate key processes and concepts with verbal descriptions of those processes and concepts” (p. 13). Our goal was to reframe this recommendation into a set of design principles for the integration of visual and verbal information. The overarching design principle is: Improve integration of graphics and verbal representations, according to evidence-based principles. This yielded the specification of 4 supporting design principles:

• Support the integration of representations
• Increase spatial contiguity
• Remove extraneous information
• Reduce impact of seductive details

Understanding how the visuals are currently employed in the curriculum has been an important step towards being able to develop and apply these design principles. An important distinction was made between diagrams – visual displays that convey mathematical information – and illustrations – pictures without mathematical information. Illustrations can provide essential context-setting information or ground novel terms and relations but (as Figure 1 shows) can be primarily decorative.

Figure 2 shows the application of our design principles. Specifically, the verbal information of the labels is added to the graphs and made spatially contiguous to the data, the extraneous soccer balls are removed, and the colors have been changed to be identifying rather than just discriminating features.

Table 1 shows the four most common types of visual representations used in CMP2. Across two 6th grade units and two 8th grade units, 80% of the 60 illustrations (the predominant representation type) in instructional text were removed to comply with our design principles. Modifications to the representation and changes to text that referenced the visuals were recommended for over 20% of the remaining representations.

The visual materials employed in CMP2 are richer and more varied than those used in the research studies. Design principles allow us to recognize and systematize the specific types of modifications that are supported by the existing research base.

Authors

• Jennifer L. Cooper, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Mitchell J. Nathan, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Virginia E. Clinton, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Pooja Sidney, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Martha W. Alibali, University of Wisconsin - Madison