Learning from Texts and Pictures: Reflections on a Meta-Level

This chapter presents a general map of the issues involved in the study of learning from texts and pictures. The chapter also discusses some of the conceptual complexities involved if the field is to develop its theoretical uniqueness to gain its distinction. The general map serves as a meta-theory, a framework by means of which specific theoretical constructions can be developed and handled. At least five clusters of variables are involved in the process of learning from texts and pictures. The five clusters are—(1) stimulus variables: the nature of the pictures, the texts, and their interrelations, (2) cognitive variables: the processes that are called upon are required, and that ones that become employed in actuality, (3) person variables: the nature of the learner's relevant abilities, prior knowledge, motivations, and perceptions of the stimuli, of self, of the situation and of the task, (4) the psychological functions accomplished: summary, introduction, explication, memory pegs, and the like, and (5) task variables: the nature of the tasks to be accomplished.