Revised visuals reduce cognitive load while reading lesson text for low prior knowledge students but increase it for middle prior knowledge students¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? There was an interaction between condition and prior knowledge group on average fixation length while reading text, F(2, 51) = 47.27, p < .001, with low prior knowledge students showing longer fixations in the original condition and middle prior knowledge students showing longer fixations in the revised condition. → Clinton 2017

Evidence¶

Clinton 2017¶

Clinton, V., Cooper, J.L., Michaelis, J., Alibali, M.W., & Nathan, M.J. (2017). How Revisions to Mathematical Visuals Affect Cognition: Evidence from Eye Tracking. In Eye-tracking technology applications in educational research (pp. 195-218). IGI Global. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED574984 doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-1005-5.ch010

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Eye-tracking experiment with 62 middle-school students reading a CMP2-derived lesson with original or revised visuals; average fixation length indexed cognitive load. The interaction was significant, and low prior knowledge students had "longer average fixation lengths on the text in the original condition than the revised condition".

"As predicted, there was an interaction between condition and prior knowledge group, F(2, 51) = 47.27, p < .001 (see Figure 4). Participants in the low prior knowledge group had longer average fixation lengths on the text in the original condition than the revised condition, F(1, 21) = 45.42, p < .001."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Prior Knowledge — moderator: an instructional effect differs with it
• Working Memory — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as expertise grows. — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• In one eye-tracking experiment, revising math-relevant visuals changes fixation length on them differently by prior knowledge group, with shorter fixations under the revised visuals for low prior knowledge students — related
• Revised visuals reduce cognitive processing of lesson text for low prior knowledge students but increase it for middle prior knowledge students — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• Revised visuals reduce cognitive processing of math-relevant visuals for low prior knowledge students but increase it for middle prior knowledge students — related
• Revisions to visuals had no effect on post-lesson test scores, though prior knowledge predicted performance — related