Systematic Thinking Fostered by Illustrations in Scientific Text

In 2 experiments, students who lacked prior knowledge about car mechanics read a passage about vehicle braking systems that either contained labeled illustrations of the systems, illustrations without labels, labels without illustrations, or no labeled illustrations. Students who received passages that contained labeled illustrations of braking systems recalled more explanative than nonexplanative information as compared to control groups, and performed better on problem solving transfer but not on verbatim recognition as compared to control groups. Results support a model of meaningful learning in which illustrations can help readers to focus their attention on explanative information in text and to reorganize the information into useful mental models.