Decorative pictures show consistently null effects on elementary schoolers' word problem-solving performance regardless of task characteristics¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesisr?·q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · 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? All reviewed studies of decorative pictures found their presence unrelated to performance, across numerically and linguistically complex tasks. → Terhi Vessonen 2026
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 · r?
Systematic review synthesis of four studies of decorative pictures in word problems, all static, spanning numerically complex tasks and combined linguistic-numerical complexity. The review reports "All these studies showed consistently null effects for decorative pictures".
"All these studies showed consistently null effects for decorative pictures, indicating that their presence was not related to students' performance."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Affective variables and gender do not relate to picture effects on elementary schoolers' word problem-solving performance — related
- Related decorative pictures do not enhance transfer performance in either experiment (null results for correctness and metacognitive monitoring) — related
- A WestEd research bulletin reports a curriculum revision that replaced a decorative photograph in a math problem with a problem-relevant sketch, on the developers' view that such photographs distract students — related
- Informative pictures relate to poorer word problem-solving performance, with negative effects from g = −1.08 to −0.08 — related
- Representational pictures show consistently null effects for word problems with demanding characteristics such as rational numbers, probabilistic reasoning, or realistic considerations — 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
- Decorative pictures in test items show no meaningful effect on performance, time on task, or metacognition compared to text-only items — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
decorative-pictures-null-effects |
title |
Decorative pictures show consistently null effects on elementary schoolers' word problem-solving performance regardless of task characteristics |
description |
Decorative pictures show consistently null effects on elementary schoolers' word problem-solving performance regardless of task characteristics |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-19 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — terhi-vessonen-2026 |
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