Examining the Impact of Multimodal Representation Instruction on Students’ Learning of Science

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the effects of embedding multimodal representation instruction within writing to learn tasks on students’ understanding of scientific concepts and scientific writing. Participants of this study were seventy-seven 8th grade students in three pre-existing classes in Korea. Three classes were divided into a treatment group receiving three steps of instruction encouraging the using of multimodal representations in their scientific writing and a control group that did not receive the instruction. Analysis of student writing and understanding of scientific concepts indicated that the treatment group showed a better ability to produce effective scientific writing with multimodal representations than the control group. The students of the treatment group were better at utilizing and embedding multimodal representations in writing than those of the control group. In addition, benefit for classes that received the instruction on embedding multimodal representations related to understanding of scientific concepts was also noted.