Sketching and verbal self‐explanation: Do they help middle school children solve science problems?

Both sketching and self-explanation are widely believed to be effective for problem-solving in science learning. However, it is unclear which aspects of these strategies promote learning how they might interact. Compared a read-only baseline, we examined the impact instructing 11-year-old students solve problems sketch, self-explain, or both. Problems were either high spatial low spatial. We coded elements relations their sketches think-alouds. Self-explanation led greater accuracy on problems, but only when used alone. Sketching had no effect, although showing more was associated with higher occurred often problems. Students may comfortable than require encouragement specific instruction use routinely benefits hypothesized appear.