Investigating the Effects of Modality and Instruction on Structural Knowledge

Abstract

Previous research has shown that individuals process stimuli differently based on the modality in which the stimuli are presented. In an effort to further understand how stimuli are processed and organized, the current study utilized card sorting in one of three media modalities (text only, picture only, and text and picture combined) and in one of two instructional styles (free sort or structured sort, via function) to assess the degree of sharedness between the resulting mental models. It was believed that structure sorts would produces greater levels of sharedness and that the semantic nature of the structured sort would yield the greatest levels of sharedness in the text only condition. Structured sorts did in fact produce better results than unstructured sorts as expected; however, in the structured sort, the picture only condition provided the best results. In addition, comparisons were made to a previous study suggesting that the proper instruction by modality combination should be evaluated based on domain and desired outcomes. The implications of these findings as well as the need for further research are discussed.