[[alternative]]A study of factors associated with the interpretation of diagrams in biology texts by eleventh graders

[[abstract]]Book illustrations play an important role in the textbooks of Biology. This study aims to identify the types of illustrations appearing in the biology textbooks, as well as find out students’ opinions toward these illustrations. Besides, the study also investigates whether students’ comprehension of the illustrations is influenced by such factors as reading habits, the intuitive rules and the difference in the depth of field. After analyzing the occurrence of illustrations in the three currently available editions of high school biology textbooks, it is found that there is a high frequency, with 1.18 pieces each page on average. As for the types of illustrations, according to Levin’s classification, it is observed that there are representational illustrations account for 67% of the occurrence in the textbooks for the first-year students, while interpretational illustrations increase to 50% in second-year and third-year books. Organizational illustrations also appear more often in the second-year and third-year books than in the first-year ones. However no transformational illustrations are observed in these textbooks. The study is based on the result of the questionnaire given to four classes of high school students in their second year two classes from Kaohsiung and two from Taipei. Most of them agree that the illustrations in the biology textbooks help learning. And students who take more scientific courses put more emphasis on learning by illustrations. Most students comprehend the illustrations by reading the accompanied explanatory words. As to the expression of the intuitive rules, most students do not show the “More A—More B” intuition when judging the relationship between the size of a given creature and the size of its cell. However, when the judgment involves bacteria of different shapes, 30% of the students derive problematic conclusion by following the “Same A—Same B” intuitive rule, in this case, “Same volume—Same surface area.” And another 30% demonstrate a “More A—More B” intuition based on the impression they get from the illustration. In interpretational and organizational illustrations arrow signs are usually used the guide students in comprehension. However, incautious use of them may result in students’ alternative thinking, such as the increase of the sense of dynamics, the implication of the amount and the misinterpretation of the relationship among the illustrated items. The investigation into depth of field supports Reid’s finding. That is, the foreground items are easier for students to see and remember, while background items tend to be ignored and forgotten, mid-ground items stand in between. Based on the findings in the study, teachers are suggested to make the best use of the cognitive function of each illustration type to facilitate students’ learning. Teachers can also create a learning environment in which students make graphs for themselves, so that they are more able to interpret or make use of the graphs. The illustration editors of textbooks showed also take students’ possible alternative thinking into consideration, and be cautious with the use if signs or symbols. As to effects of depth of field on memory, it is plausible to place the items to be emphasized at the foreground. For further research, the effect of zone of field on memory in two-dimensioned picture seems to be a topic worth studying. Do the upper, middle and lower part of a two-dimensioned picture present the same memory effect on students as the foreground, mid-ground, and the background in a three-dimensioned picture? Future study like this hopefully can generate more insight on “how to learn better.”