Selectivity in Diagrams: reading beyond the lines

Abstract

Diagrams are commonly used with beginning students of technical domains to introduce these learners to key aspects of the subject matter. Instructional benefit is intended to result from a diagram's simplification of the content into a highly selective form of graphic presentation. However, this selectivity may not benefit those lacking the domain‐specific knowledge necessary to construct from the diagram an appropriate mental representation of the depicted situation. A weather map diagram extension task compared the mental representation of subjects with high levels of knowledge in the domain of meteorology (meteorologists) with that of low knowledge subjects (non‐meteorologists). The meteorologists’ domain‐specific elaboration of the given markings suggested a mental representation that was not limited by the diagram's selectivity, but rather incorporated the broader meteorological situation implied by the diagram. In contrast, the non‐meteorologists’ domain‐general approach indicated a meteorologically impoverished mental representation that was largely driven by the given diagram's visuo‐spatial characteristics.

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