Visualizing support—provided diagrams or learner-generated drawings—facilitates higher-quality explanations and better comprehension than explaining text alone¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (3 entries) · reviewr2–r3·q2
Currency · newest study 2023 · checked against its sources 2026-10-22 (automated, 3 of 3 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 who self-explained provided diagrams generated more inferences and performed better on a comprehension test than students who explained text only (Ainsworth & Loizou, 2003, as reported by the review). → Fiorella 2023
q2 i? Learners who created drawings while learning from text-only materials showed higher comprehension than learners who wrote verbal summaries (Bobek & Tversky, 2016, as reported by the review). → Fiorella 2023 (2)
q2 i? Students who created drawings while orally explaining generated more elaborative inferences and showed better comprehension and transfer than explaining-only students; drawing-only and explaining-only groups did not significantly differ (Fiorella & Kuhlmann, 2020, as reported). → Fiorella 2023 (3)
Evidence¶
Fiorella 2023¶
Fiorella, L. (2023). Making Sense of Generative Learning. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09769-7
q2 · i? · review · r3
Narrative review attributing this to Ainsworth and Loizou (2003): college students studied a circulatory-system lesson as text or diagrams, all prompted to self-explain. The review reports diagram explainers outperformed text explainers; no effect size printed.
"Students who self-explained diagrams generated more inferences in their explanations and performed better on a subsequent comprehension test than students who explained text only."
Fiorella 2023 (2)¶
Fiorella, L. (2023). Making Sense of Generative Learning. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09769-7
q2 · i? · review · r2
Narrative review attributing this to Bobek and Tversky (2016): college students learning tire-pump and bonding texts wrote self-explanations or drew. The review reports the drawing advantage across both physical-system and abstract-comparison materials; no effect size printed.
"Learners who created drawings exhibited higher comprehension test performance than learners who wrote verbal summaries"
Fiorella 2023 (3)¶
Fiorella, L. (2023). Making Sense of Generative Learning. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09769-7
q2 · i? · causal · r?
Narrative review attributing this to Fiorella and Kuhlmann (2020): college students taught a respiratory-system text on video via explaining, drawing, or drawing while explaining, tested one week later. The review notes drawing-only and explaining-only groups 'did not significantly differ'.
"Students who created drawings while explaining generated more elaborative inferences in their oral explanations than students who only orally explained, and this resulted in better subsequent comprehension and transfer test performance."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Sequencing generated drawing before viewing a provided visual improves transfer, suggesting provided visuals work best as feedback — related
- Drawing can underperform the generative strategy of explaining, particularly on verbally aligned tests — related
- Provided visuals can act as a crutch: explaining with provided visuals yielded higher-quality explanations but no transfer advantage over explaining without them — related
- Enacting support—gestures and manipulatives—facilitates explanation quality and problem-solving, partly by adding strategies to verbal explanations — related
- Adding relevant pictures or graphics to text improves learning from it, with a small pooled effect on reading comprehension, though whether dual coding explains the benefit is disputed — a broader claim this one bears on
- Congruent pictures paired with text facilitate reading comprehension better than text alone or pictures alone — a broader claim this one bears on
- Prompting learners to self-explain, one generative strategy, improves learning by a moderate average amount; other generative activities are not tested by the evidence recorded here — a broader claim this one bears on
- In Studies 1a and 2, instructional visuals produced no significant difference in test performance or in test and explain relative metacomprehension accuracy — reports the opposite
- Delayed diagram completion improves students' relative monitoring accuracy of text comprehension compared with no diagramming — related
- Neither rereading nor self-explanation changed comprehension test performance itself; effects were specific to monitoring accuracy — related
- Concept mapping improves learning over most comparison conditions by a moderate average amount, but not over time-matched retrieval practice — related
- Receiving two model answer diagrams improves secondary students' delayed-diagramming text comprehension relative to no model answers — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
visualizing-support-facilitates-explaining |
title |
Visualizing support—provided diagrams or learner-generated drawings—facilitates higher-quality explanations and better comprehension than explaining text alone |
description |
Visualizing support—provided diagrams or learner-generated drawings—facilitates higher-quality explanations and better comprehension than explaining text alone |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2023 |
source_checked |
2026-10-22 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-22 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
3 — fiorella-2023, fiorella-2023-2, fiorella-2023-3 |
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