Dlustrations in Text: a Retentionai Role

Abstract

The use of illustrations in instructional texts is a problem of practical concern for the educational technologist as well as for the learning theorist, and as such, it is amenable to research investigation. In the study reported here, illustrations in text were hypothesized to fulfil a retentionai role which would enhance long‐term memory of the text itself. An experiment was conducted in which were varied the availability of illustrations (an illustrated prose passage versus a nonillustrated passage) and delay of retention (immediate‐recall tests versus recall tests given two weeks later). The passage was a short text on history and the participants were 15‐year‐old students from a secondary school. An interaction between illustrations and delay of retention was obtained on a cued‐recall test examining specific details from the passage, but not on a free‐recall test examining topical ideas. The detailed results were not fully supportive of the theory being tested, but clarify avenues for further research.