Gellof Kanselaar

Background History learning requires that students understand historical phenomena, abstract concepts and the relations between them. Students have problems grasping, using and relating complex historical developments and structures. Aims A study was conducted to determine the effects of tasks with abstract and/or concrete visualizations on the learning of historical developments and structures. The hypothesis was that students receiving visualizations would learn and retain more historical knowledge and concepts than those not receiving visualizations. Sample First‐year pupils in vocational middle school ( N = 104) worked in randomly assigned pairs. Methods After reading a text, the pairs were given a learning task in one of four conditions: Textual, Concrete visualized, Abstract visualized, and Combined. Results Post‐test and retention test results showed no significant differences. There were some significant differences on the evaluation questionnaire. Conclusions Combining text and different types of visualizations in learning tasks does not necessarily enhance history learning. Possible explanations given are the ecological setting, the semiotics of the domain of history – that are not defined clearly – and the difficulty of unequivocally visualizing historical concepts.

This article investigates the conditions under which diagrammatic representations support collaborative argumentation-based learning in a computer environment. Thirty dyads of 15- to 18-year-old students participated in a writing task consisting of 3 phases. Students prepared by constructing a representation (text or diagram) individually. Then they discussed the topic and wrote a text in dyads. They consolidated their knowledge by revising their individual representation. There were 3 conditions: Students could use either (a) the individual texts they wrote, (b) the individual diagrams they constructed, or (c) a diagram that was constructed for them based on the text they wrote. Results showed that students who constructed a diagram themselves explored the topic more than students in the other conditions. We also found differences in the way collaborating dyads used their representations. Dyads who engaged in deep discussion used their representations as a basis for knowledge construction. In contrast, dyads who engaged in only shallow discussion used their representations solely to copy information to their collaborative text. We conclude that diagrammatic representations can improve collaborative learning, but only when they are used in a co-constructive way.