Writing-To-Learn and Graph-Drawing as Aids of The Integration of Text and Graphs

Abstract

Comprehending instructional texts often requires the integration of verbal and visual information. Visual information (especially diagrams) can be helpful for relating and integrating pieces of information and can therefore contribute to mental model building. However, they often fail in achieving any contribution to the instructional process, because of a number of factors.

In fact, readers often neglect illustrations and rely too much on textual information. Even when they pay attention to pictorial information, learners often obtain the overall meaning of pictures the easiest and fastest way possible, through low-level processing that gives the learner the illusion of having understood. Moreover, graphs used in textbooks may be difficult to understand, because they often assume an information-telling perspective that does not help readers understand a text’s most important data and numerical trend. A further problem is that texts and graphs are often placed far apart from each other and therefore require the learner to scan the page in search of a diagram corresponding to a printed sentence.

The aim of this investigation is to verify whether the use of two well-known study strategies (writing-to-learn and drawing visual organizers, i.e., graph drawing) can stimulate the integration of a text’s propositions with visual information. Forty-two University students were asked to read a newspaper article (containing one written text and six diagrams) and either to prepare a written reformulation of the text or to draw a visual organizer summarizing the textual information.

An analysis of the participants’ written notes (i.e., an external and controllable product of task instructions) and of their results in a delayed test provided us with information on the usefulness of the two strategies for information integration and for the monitoring of text comprehension.

An analysis of overall group main effects revealed significant differences among instructional conditions for total scores and for scores on diagram and integration questions, but not for text questions. The group of students who drew graphs outperformed the others (the writing-to-learn and reading-only groups) on all measures requiring the integration of textual and graphic information.