Research: Learning through visuals
Including visuals in lessons helps students better explain what they learn, but doesn’t necessarily lead to stronger test performance.
Two recent papers authored or co-authored by Logan Fiorella, associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, explore the effects of provided visuals for students on their explanations of concepts.
“Different types of visuals emphasize different types of relationships in your explanations, so it has implications, not just that visuals can help you explain, but which kinds of visuals and how you should design those visuals to support different types of relationships,” he said.