CAN QUESTIONS FACILITATE LEARNING FROM ILLUSTRATED SCIENCE TEXTS?

Abstract

This research examines the effectiveness of using questions to facilitate processing of diagrams in science texts. Three studies assessed college students' learning from science passages with questions about illustrations. Experiment 1 investigated the effect of replacing traditional figure captions in an ecology passage with captions which provide questions about illustrations. Experimental subjects did not perform better with questions as captions. An interaction occurred, with control subjects performing better on text‐only multiple‐choice items. Experiment 2 assessed the effect of placing questions about the illustrations directly in the text; however, no significant effects emerged. Experiment 3 replicated the investigation of the effect of placing questions about illustrations in the text, but with different materials. Contrary to predictions, the control group performed better on the multiple‐choice test than the experimental group, and both groups performed better on text‐and‐diagram multiple‐choice items than text‐only items. The findings from these experiments consistently indicate that questions about illustrations do not facilitate learning. These findings are discussed with reference to cognitive load theory (Chandler & Sweller, 1991) the dual coding perspective (Paivio, 1971, 1986; Sadoski, Paivio & Goetz, 1991), and the generative theory of textbook design. (Mayer, Steinhoff, Bower & Mars, 1995).