This experimental study examined how the presence of visual diagrams in 2 science texts affected the independent reading comprehension of 213 fourth-grade students in the southeastern United States. In addition, the relative impact of 3 diagram designs and layout (representational, interpretational, or integrated) was compared with a control. Prior knowledge was measured and statistically controlled for each text. Comprehension measures were a term-selection posttest and a reading comprehension posttest. Overall, on both texts, visual diagrams provide minimal or no added value to students’ comprehension above the text-only conditions. Findings also indicated that the integrated diagram may create a condition of cognitive overload for some students. Implications for instructional material design are discussed.

中文翻译：

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什么使图表容易或难？图表设计对四年级学生科学课文理解的影响

本实验研究检验了 2 篇科学文本中视觉图表的存在如何影响美国东南部 213 名四年级学生的独立阅读理解能力。此外，将 3 个图表设计和布局（代表性、解释性或集成）的相对影响与对照进行了比较。对每个文本的先验知识进行测量和统计控制。理解措施是一个术语选择后测和一个阅读理解后测。总体而言，在两种文本中，视觉图表在纯文本条件下对学生理解的附加价值很小或没有。调查结果还表明，综合图表可能会为某些学生造成认知超负荷。讨论了对教学材料设计的影响。