Month: August 2007

DYNAMIC vs STATIC ILLUSTRATIONS

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relative efficacy of two types of illustrations on the reading comprehension of secondary students with learning disabilities. Materials used in the study are text passages from a high school biology book, supported with either static illlustrations (e.g., two dimensional pictures, photos, graphs etc.) or dynamic illustrations (e.g., video, simulations, animations etc.). Examples of both are presented below for passages in a commonly used biology text.

Continue reading “UO Study 1” →

DESCRIPTIVE vs INSTRUCTIVE CAPTIONS

This study examines content area learning outcomes for learning disabled students when presented a short passage of text with an accompanying illustration with a descriptive or instructive caption. A descriptive caption simply describes what is being depicted in the illustration. This is the most common type of caption. An instructive caption provides covert and overt strategies for interacting with and interpreting what is being depicted in the illustration. 

Continue reading “UO Study 2” →