Two experiments compared the effects of learning by drawing to studying instructor-provided visuals on learning outcomes, learning time, and cognitive load. College students studied a text on the human circulatory system and completed comprehension and transfer tests. In Experiment 1 (N = 107), students studied the text with provided visuals (provided visuals) or generated their own drawings from the text with text-based support (verbally-supported drawing) or without support (unsupported drawing). Results showed that while the verbally-supported drawing condition spent significantly more time and experienced significantly higher cognitive load than the provided visuals condition, there were no differences across the three conditions in learning outcomes. In Experiment 2 (N = 85), students studied the text with provided visuals (provided visuals) or generated drawings from the text with provided visuals as feedback (visually-supported drawing). Results showed that the visually-supported drawing condition spent significantly more time and experienced significantly higher cognitive load than the provided visuals condition but also performed significantly better than the provided visuals condition on the comprehension test. These findings suggest generating drawings prior to studying provided visuals is worth the time and effort.

两个实验比较了绘画学习与学习教师提供的视觉效果对学习成果、学习时间和认知负荷的影响。大学生学习了一篇关于人体循环系统的课文，并完成了理解和迁移测试。在实验 1 ( N  = 107) 中，学生使用提供的视觉对象 (provided visuals) 学习文本，或者在基于文本的支持（口头支持的绘图）或不支持（不支持的绘图）的情况下根据文本生成自己的绘图。结果表明，虽然口头支持的绘画条件比提供的视觉条件花费了更多的时间并且经历了显着更高的认知负荷，但三种条件下的学习结果没有差异。在实验 2 ( N = 85），学生使用提供的视觉效果（提供的视觉效果）或从文本中生成的图纸作为反馈（视觉支持的图纸）学习文本。结果表明，视觉支持的绘图条件比提供的视觉条件花费了更多的时间，经历了显着更高的认知负荷，但在理解测试中的表现也明显优于提供的视觉条件。这些发现表明，在研究提供的视觉效果之前生成图纸是值得花时间和精力的。