Effects of varying pictorial detail and presentation strategy on concept formation

Abstract

For lack of sufficient empirical evidence, designers of instruction must still rely largely on intuition in deciding how to design and present visuals. Researchers in visual instruction have cited the need to evaluate systematically the relative effectiveness of varied pictorial illustrations on the attainment of specific learning tasks. Gropper (1966) would base research on an analytic look at the roles visuals play in instruction and how these roles may vary according to the kind of learning and type of task. Dwyer (1969) sees more research needed to identify the physical characteristics of the different types of visual illustration that facilitate student achievement of different types of educational objectives. Among the possible avenues of research are questions of how much detail to include in visuals used for instruction, how to present the visuals, and whether the effects of amount of detail and presentation strategy vary with the age of the students. The purpose of the study reported here was to nar-