Spontaneous spatial strategy use in learning from scientific text

Abstract

Two studies explored the role of the spontaneous use of spatial note-taking strategies (i.e., creating maps and drawings) and spatial ability in learning from a scientific passage. In Study 1, college students read and took notes by hand on a 10-paragraph scientific passage about the human respiratory system. Students tended to use verbal strategies such as lists (on 48% of the paragraphs), outlines (29%) and running text (15%), but also used spatial strategies such as maps (28%) and drawings (11%). Regression analyses indicated that spatial ability and the use of spatial strategies (maps or drawings) significantly predicted learning outcomes, with spatial strategy use explaining additional variance beyond spatial ability. In Study 2, students read the same scientific passage and took notes either by hand on paper (paper group), by hand on a large whiteboard (whiteboard group), or on a laptop computer (computer group). A similar general pattern as Study 1 was found for the paper group, but this pattern was not found for the computer or whiteboard groups, suggesting that the relationships found in Study 1 might depend on the note-taking medium. Results also indicated that students in the paper and whiteboard groups spontaneously used more spatial strategies, whereas the computer group tended to use verbal strategies (i.e., words only), suggesting that different note-taking contexts encourage different strategies.

Five Strategies for Optimizing Instructional Materials: Instructor- and Learner-Managed Cognitive Load

“…An alternative, learner-managed solution is to ask students to generate their own images from the text (Ainsworth et al, 2011 ; Fiorella & Mayer, 2016 , 2017 ; Van Meter & Garner, 2005 ), as shown in Fig. 1c .…”

Fostering knowledge building in learning by teaching: A test of the drawing‐facilitates‐explaining hypothesis

“…According to the cognitive model of drawing construction (Van Meter & Firetto, 2013), creating drawings forces students to build connections among verbal and nonverbal representations by externalizing their mental model. Research suggests creating one's own pictorial representation of the learning material is generally more effective than using purely verbal strategies, such as writing summaries (Fiorella & Mayer, 2017; Fiorella & Zhang, 2018; Van Meter & Garner, 2005). For example, Leopold and Leutner (2012) found high school students who created drawing to represent a science text on water molecules exhibited deeper understanding than students who wrote verbal summaries.…”

Is it worth it? The costs and benefits of bringing a laptop to a university class

“…The first study to investigate this phenomenon found that students who were assigned to take notes by hand during a lab-based study showed greater learning than those assigned to take notes on a laptop [ 13 ]. In contrast, a different lab-based study found that laptop note-takers outperformed individuals who took notes by hand [ 23 ]. Finally, a third study found that the effects of various note taking media depend on whether students reviewed their notes [ 24 ].…”