Teaching people to read comics: the impact of a visual literacy intervention on comprehension of educational comics

ABSTRACT

Evidence suggests that children’s abilities to comprehend information can vary, which may lead to miscommunication and impact on future life outcomes. Previous research suggests that visual literacy interventions may be helpful for children who need to interpret visual sources of information. Recently there has been renewed interest in the potential of comics as assistive tools in pedagogical settings, which are a highly visual medium. However, no research has yet investigated whether a visual literacy intervention can assist children in their comprehension of comics. The current experiment set out to determine if a visual literacy intervention constructed around comics would improve comprehension of educational comics in primary school children. The study consisted of a pre- and post-intervention procedure. Previous comic reading experience was included as a variable. In each session, comprehension and inferential understanding was assessed. Both comprehension and inferential understanding improved following the comics literacy intervention. These results demonstrate that visual literacy instruction can enhance comprehension of educational comics. Findings can be applied to educational settings and have the potential for improving educational outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual literacy
• comics
• education
• comprehension
• primary School
• intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samantha Golding

Samantha Golding received her BSc in Psychology from London Southbank University and her MSc in Developmental Psychology from Sheffield Hallam University. Her research interests in comics derived from supporting students with special educational needs, but broadened to improving educational outcomes for all abilities. Samantha currently works with individuals with complex mental illnesses and plans to develop comics as psychoeducational tools in this area in the future.

Diarmuid Verrier

Diarmuid Verrier completed his PhD at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and is currently a senior lecturer in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University where he is course leader of the MSc Developmental Psychology. Most of his research lies within the field of personality and individual differences, but he is also very interested in comics research.