Effects of strategy instructions on learning from text and pictures

In two experiments, we compared effects of instructions that encourage learners to create referential connections between words and pictures with instructions that distract learners from creating referential connections. In Experiment 1, students read a scientific text under four conditions. In the text-picture condition, students read the illustrated text without strategy instructions. In the integration condition, students identified important concepts and wrote them right by the corresponding components of the pictures. In the separation condition students identified important concepts and wrote them beside the corresponding picture. A control group read the text without illustrations. Transfer and comprehension performance in the text-picture group was higher than in the text-only group. Furthermore, the text-picture and integration groups performed better than the separation group. In Experiment 2, the main results were replicated using a summary strategy instead of the important concepts strategy. Results indicate specific effects of strategy instructions on learning from text and pictures and are discussed in the context of multimedia learning theories.