What is a Picture Comparison Interactive Medium?

15 1884, as cited in Murdani 2011, states that a language could be best taught by using pictures actively in a classroom. Chanlin 1998 supports the statement by reporting that visual treatments in lessons can enhance learning with varying degrees of success as cited in Stokes, 2001. When prior knowledge is low, graphics, either still or animated, are better for learning descriptive facts than lessons with text only. Moreover, Kleinman and Dwyer 1999 also examined the effects of specific visual skills in facilitating learning. They found out that the use of color graphics in instructional modules as opposed to black and white graphics could promote any achievement, particularly when learning concepts. There are several instructional functions that visualizations may have whether they are accompanied by verbal explanations or not. Levie and Lentz 1982 assert that in the term of the affect, visualizations are often said to be motivating for students because they can make a subject matter more interesting and appealing to students. Furthermore, they can trigger specific emotions or lead to any changes in learners’ attitude. In the further research, Levin, Anglin, and Carney 1987 has conducted an analysis of instructional functions associated with the use of visualizations as text-adjuncts in education literature. In the review, the authors described five functions of visualizations as text-adjuncts. They are decorative, representation, organization, interpretation, and transformation function. In the decorative function, the verbal information is presented only to make a text more appealing to learners. Then, as a representational function, visualizations exist to make the meaning of a text more accessible for learners by making a text more concrete. The presence of PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 16 visualizations is considered having an organizational function if it can provide an organizational framework for a text and make the content more coherent by highlighting argumentative or organizational structures of the text. Interpretation function of visualizations comes up by clarifying any texts which are difficult to be understood and making them more understandable for learners. The last and the rarest function is a transformation function. In this function, visualizations are designed to improve memory performances directly by targeting any critical information to be learned, recoding it into a more concrete and memorable form, relating it in a well-organized content, and then providing the learners a systematic means of retrieving the critical information. Thus, we can conclude that there are five functions of visualizations we can bring to any enhancement of learning processes. However, the presence of any visual-enhancement in education settings must be properly designed and used; otherwise, it would not function effectively in maximizing learners’ achievement. 2.1.5 Dual Coding Considering individual’s cognitive preferences in designing learning aids is needed to help teachers in achieving effective learning processes, Rayner and Riding 1998 describe a cognitive style as an individual’s preferred and habitual approach in organizing and representing information. In other words, it can be concluded as the way an individual processes the information he or she received. There are numbers of researchers who have been trying to investigate cognitive preferences. Early work in cognitive styles identified a verbal-visual cognitive style dimension. This dimension is in line with the fact that some people are better 17 at processing words and some people are better at processing pictures Mayer Massa, 2003. The first verbal-visual model was introduced by Paivio 1986, namely a dual coding theory. In this study, learners are described as either visualizers or verbalizers. Visualizers tend to focus on imagery-based information such as pictures and diagrams, whereas verbalizers prefer to focus on verbal information such as texts or spoken narrations. Paivio’s theory of dual coding claims that strong associative activation of mental imagery facilitates memory for words, and these two processes – one verbal symbolic codes and one visual analogue codes were separable in memory. The structural assumptions of dual coding can be summarized in Figure 2.2, which illustrates the idea of separate but interconnected systems. Figure 2.2 A Schematic Depiction of Verbal and Nonverbal Symbolic Systems by Paivio, 1990