Improving students’ learning by providing a graphic organizer after a multimedia document

Abstract

AbstractThe present study was intended to deepen current knowledge about the impact of graphic organizers (GOs) on students’ learning in a computer‐based learning environment, by evaluating the effects of successive versus simultaneous presentation of a GO and an explanatory text. Based on the previous studies, we hypothesized that simultaneous display of a GO improves learning performances for the information it highlights (represented elements), but impairs those for nonrepresented elements, owing to a focused processing effect during text reading. We predicted that staggering the display of the document and the GO would avoid this effect and enhance the learning of both represented and nonrepresented elements. We compared three groups: students who studied a multimedia document without a GO (control group); students who viewed the same multimedia document accompanied by a GO that was displayed simultaneously (simultaneous GO group); and students who viewed the document and were then shown the GO (successive GO group). In line with previous research on GOs, results showed that adding a GO to the multimedia document increased students’ memorization of the represented elements and their comprehension. Interestingly, students in the successive GO group exhibited enhanced memorization of the nonrepresented elements and had the highest comprehension scores. These original results indicate that delaying the display of the GO can lead students to process the overall information more deeply and, in turn, improve their learning.