Why Sketching May Aid Learning From Science Texts: Contrasting Sketching With Written Explanations

Abstract

The goal of this study was to explore two accounts for why sketching during learning from text is helpful: (1) sketching acts like other constructive strategies such as self-explanation because it helps learners to identify relevant information and generate inferences; or (2) that in addition to these general effects, sketching has more specific benefits due to the pictorial representation that is constructed. Seventy-three seventh-graders (32 girls, M = 12.82 years) were first taught how to either create sketches or self-explain while studying science texts. During a subsequent learning phase, all students were asked to read an expository text about the greenhouse effect. Finally, they were asked to write down everything they remembered and then answer transfer questions. Strategy quality during learning was assessed as the number of key concepts that had either been sketched or mentioned in the self-explanations. The results showed that at an overall performance level there were only marginal group differences. However, a more in-depth analysis revealed that whereas no group differences emerged for students implementing either strategy poorly, the sketching group clearly outperformed the self-explanation group for students who applied the strategies with higher quality. Furthermore, higher sketching quality was strongly related to better learning outcomes. Thus, the study's results are more in line with the second account: Sketching can have a beneficial effect on learning above and beyond generating written explanations; at least, if well deployed.

Can we further improve tablet-based drawing to enhance learning? An empirical test of two types of support

“…In particular, the ineffectiveness of drawing instructions to enhance learning found in some studies could be explained by the low-quality drawings that learners had produced (Leopold et al 2013;Leutner et al 2009). Likewise, within groups with drawing tasks, learners who constructed high-quality drawings tended to score higher on learning outcome tests than learners who construct low-quality drawings (Greene 1989;Leutner et al 2009;Mason et al 2013;Scheiter et al 2017;Schmeck et al 2014;Schmidgall et al 2019;Van Meter 2001;Van Meter et al 2006).…”

“…In the context of drawing for learning, however, this is often not the case. Although representational drawing has been shown to be an effective strategy to learn from written text, students sometimes fail to produce coherent visualizations that capture the texts' main ideas, and hence do not show better learning outcomes (e.g., Scheiter et al 2017). Accordingly, drawing quality (i.e., the degree to which a drawing provides an accurate representation of the text content) has been shown to be predictive of students' learning outcome when drawing to learn from text, a phenomenon called the prognostic drawing effect (e.g., Schmeck et al 2014).…”

Adjunct aids and signals support online learning from multiple representations

“…The expository text, which dealt with the physical and chemical background of aurora formation, was provided by the Leibniz‐Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) in Tübingen, Germany, and had been pre‐tested in several studies (e.g. Scheiter, Schleinschok, & Ainsworth, 2017). For the current study, we used a slightly modified version as we divided the original texts into smaller sections and added graphics.…”

Learning by Drawing Visual Representations: Potential, Purposes, and Practical Implications

“…First, what a learner draws matters. For example, when drawing from written text, students who accurately transform more of the text into their drawings benefit the most (Scheiter et al, 2017). For other purposes of drawing, however, this may be inappropriate, so different assessment criteria are needed.…”