Asac 2006 Banff, Alberta What Are You Staring At? Comparing Iconic Graphics with Text in Entity Relationship Diagramming

This exploratory study examines the impact of iconic graphics on the domain understanding developed by participants when reading entityrelationship diagrams (ERDs). Cognitive Load Theory and the related Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning are used to hypothesize that iconic graphics provide additional visual information resulting in more complete mental models for knowledge construction of the modeled domain. Understanding was measured using scores on transfer (problem solving) tasks. Comprehension and retention tasks provided control for informational equivalence. Two cases were used to compare the use of iconic graphics versus text-only entities. Results provided positive but limited theoretical support for the hypothesized advantages of iconic graphics.