Dynamics of mental model construction from text and graphics

When students read for learning, they frequently are required to integrate text and graphics information into coherent knowledge structures. The following study aimed at analyzing how students deal with texts and how they deal with graphics when they try to integrate the two sources of information. Furthermore, the study investigated differences between students from different school types and grades. Forty students from grades 5 and 8 from higher track and lower track of the German school system were asked to process and integrate texts and graphics in order to answer items from different levels of a text–picture integration taxonomy. Students’ eye movements were recorded and analyzed. Results suggest fundamentally different functions of text and graphics, which are associated with different processing strategies. Texts are more likely to be used according to a coherence-formation strategy, whereas graphics are more likely to be used on demand as visual cognitive tools according to an information-selection strategy. Students from different tracks of schooling revealed different adaptivity with regard to the requirements of combining text and graphic information.