Strategies for Successful Learning with Geographical Comics: An Eye-Tracking Study with Young Learners

Abstract

Many studies report that comics are useful as learning material. However, there is little known about how learning with comics works. Based on previously established theories about multimedia learning, we conducted an eye-tracking experiment to examine learning about geography with a specially designed combination of comic and map which we call geo-comic. In our experiment, we show that our geo-comic fulfills many prerequisites for promoting deep learning. Thus, we establish guidelines for an effective design of geo-comics and recommend deploying comics in combination with maps in geography classes.

Keywords

• geography education
• comics
• eye-tracking
• text–picture combination
• multimedia learning
• multiple perspectives