A GENERATIVE THEORY OF TEXTBOOK DESIGN - USING ANNOTATED ILLUSTRATIONS TO FOSTER MEANINGFUL LEARNING OF SCIENCE TEXT

In three experiments, college students read a text explaining how ligh tning works and then took problem-solving transfer tests. Some student s (integrated group) also viewed illustrations depicting the major sta ges in the formation of lightning that (a) were placed adjacent to cor responding text paragraphs and (b) contained annotations repeating the verbal cause-and-effect information from the text. Other students (se parated group) viewed the same illustrations (a) on a separate page an d (b) without annotations, after they had finished reading the text. T he integrated group generated approximately 50% more creative solution s on transfer problems than the separated group, and this pattern was stronger for students who lacked experience in meteorology than for hi gh-experience students. The positive effects of integrated illustratio ns depended on incorporating annotations (i.e., captions and labels) i nto the illustrations rather than placing illustrations close to corre sponding paragraphs. Results were interpreted in light of a generative theory of multimedia learning which posits that meaningful learning r equires constructing connections between visual and verbal representat ions of a system.