The acquisition of knowledge and skills is one of the fundamental challenges facing all of us in life, and providing the necessary support for these learning processes is a major challenge for society as a whole.

Instructional psychology describes and explains learning processes at the individual level, thus identifying potential means of enhancing both self-regulated learning and more institutionalised learning in schools, initial and continuing vocational and professional training, and other kinds of training programmes.

The Department of Instructional Psychology unites expertise in the fields of psychology and educational science. Teaching and research within the Department focuses on the cognitive psychological principles of learning and instruction, and on their application in evaluation and training programmes. Particular emphasis is placed on learning with new media.

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2010, 104, 872-879.

Drawing as a Generative Activity and Drawing as a Prognostic Activity

Annett Schwamborn, Richard E. Mayer, Hubertina Thillmann, Claudia Leopold, Detlev Leutner

Abstract

In this study, 9th-grade students (N = 196) with a mean age of 14.7 years read a scientific text explaining the chemical process of doing laundry with soap and water and then took 3 tests. Students who were instructed to generate drawings during learning scored higher than students who only read on subsequent tests of transfer (d = 0.91), retention (d = 0.87), and drawing (d = 2.00). For students who were instructed to generate drawings during learning, those who generated high-accuracy drawings (according to a median split) scored higher than students who generated low-accuracy drawings on subsequent tests of transfer (d = 0.99), retention (d = 0.79), and drawing (d = 1.87); furthermore, drawing-accuracy scores during learning correlated with learning-outcome scores on transfer (r = .57), retention (r = .50), and drawing (r = .82). Results suggest that drawing can serve as a generative activity and as a prognostic activity.

Keywords:
• text comprehension
• drawing
• multimedia learning

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