Explaining with Diagrams for Promoting Deeper Learning: School Practice to Integrate Knowledge Across Subjects

Abstract

Diagrams are considered a powerful strategy for understanding and problem-solving. Self-explanation is believed to be behind the effectiveness of diagrams. However, it is not clear to what extent students engage in self-explanation. The possibility that students do not always engage in self-explanation is suggested by empirical studies showing that diagrams do not always produce efficacious outcomes. Ichikawa [1] also argued that it is unclear how students interpret diagrams and discussed the need to have students explain themselves using diagrams. In science learning, diagrams effectively help students learn the principles behind phenomena. Having students use diagrams to explain phenomena may help them understand the principles of the phenomena correctly and integrate their knowledge effectively across subject areas. Therefore, in this study, we developed lesson instructions in which students were required to explain the phenomenon using diagrams after the teacher had explained it. Students were also given the opportunity to solve the problem collaboratively after the explanation had been provided. The study involved 71 8th-grade students in one school. Fifty-eight same grade students from a traditional public school also participated in the study and served as the control group. A “basic knowledge test”, which tested students’ knowledge in a fill-in-the-blank format, and a “principle understanding test” and “transfer test,” which tested students’ knowledge in an explanation format, were administered. The results demonstrated no significant difference in the basic knowledge test, but the score in the principle understanding test and the transfer knowledge test was higher for the students who received the experimental instruction. This study indicates that deeper understanding is facilitated by combining the experience of using diagrams with peer explanation.