Cognitive skills are the most probable student characteristic to modify picture effects: low math performers do better without representational pictures, low reading-comprehension students better with them¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · quant-synthesisr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · checked against its sources 2026-10-19 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Students low in general mathematics performed better on text-only versions than with representational pictures, while students low in reading comprehension and visuospatial executive functioning performed better with representational pictures. → Terhi Vessonen 2026
q2 i? Arithmetic skills did not relate to the association between representational pictures and performance. → Terhi Vessonen 2026 (2)
Evidence¶
Terhi Vessonen 2026¶
Terhi Vessonen, Heidi Hellstrand, Pirjo Aunio, Anu Laine. (2026). Pictures in Mathematical Word Problems: A Systematic Review on the Role of Task and Student Characteristics. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-025-10112-5
q2 · i? · quant-synthesis · r2
Review synthesis of eight studies measuring student characteristics. The review reports this low-mathematics finding and, separately, that "low-performing students in reading comprehension and visuospatial executive functioning showed better performance on the tasks with representational pictures".
"Booth and Koedinger (2012) found that students who were low-performing in general mathematics performed better on text-only versions of the word problems when these were contrasted to representational pictures."
Terhi Vessonen 2026 (2)¶
Terhi Vessonen, Heidi Hellstrand, Pirjo Aunio, Anu Laine. (2026). Pictures in Mathematical Word Problems: A Systematic Review on the Role of Task and Student Characteristics. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-025-10112-5
q2 · i? · review · r3
Review synthesis reporting that representational pictures "had similar effects for students with high and low arithmetic skills" across two studies. No effect sizes are printed for this moderator finding.
"arithmetic skills were not shown to relate to the association between of representational pictures and students' performance (Berens & Van Lieshout, 2009; Van Lieshout & Xenidou-Dervou, 2018)."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Affective variables and gender do not relate to picture effects on elementary schoolers' word problem-solving performance — related
- Representational pictures relate to better word problem-solving performance only with relatively simple tasks, with the largest effects for first-position-of-the-unknown problems — related
- Representational pictures show consistently null effects for word problems with demanding characteristics such as rational numbers, probabilistic reasoning, or realistic considerations — related
- Informative pictures relate to poorer word problem-solving performance, with negative effects from g = −1.08 to −0.08 — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
cognitive-skills-moderate-picture-effects |
title |
Cognitive skills are the most probable student characteristic to modify picture effects: low math performers do better without representational pictures, low reading-comprehension students better with them |
description |
Cognitive skills are the most probable student characteristic to modify picture effects: low math performers do better without representational pictures, low reading-comprehension students better with them |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
source_checked |
2026-10-19 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-19 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
2 — terhi-vessonen-2026, terhi-vessonen-2026-2 |
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