The role of expert feedback during a learning-by-drawing task

This study investigates the role of feedback in form of expert-drawings during a learning-by-drawing task. Therefore 49 seventh graders from a German secondary school (“Gymnasium”) took part in the research. One class was assigned to the control group, the other to the experimental group. The experiment took place within the biology lessons of the classes covering the domain of mushrooms and natural cycles with mushrooms. During the experiment both groups were asked to read text passages and then to create a drawing about the content of this text. Students from the experimental class achieved feedback in form of an expert-drawing (illustration) and had the chance to correct and enhance their own drawing with help of it. Data was gathered via a pre-, a post-, and a retention test. The tests consisted of a word recognition task and a multiple choice test. Students from the experimental group scored higher on the word recognition task than their counterparts from the control group. On the multiple choice test no significant difference between groups was found. This findings lead to the conclusion that support in form of illustrations may switch attention of the student to new issues of a task and therefore enhances at least the familiarity with the field of learning. This is in line with existing models of learner generated drawings.