Dual Coding
Information presented as words and images together is remembered better than either alone. It applies to everyone, unlike learning styles.
Allan Paivio proposed in 1971, and developed through the 1980s, that cognition runs on two partly independent systems: a verbal one handling language and a non-verbal imagery one handling pictures and spatial information. Material encoded in both leaves two retrieval routes instead of one.
Richard Mayer built the applied version into his research on multimedia learning. A diagram accompanied by words outperforms either alone, provided the two are genuinely about the same thing and are placed close together. Decorative pictures do not help and often hurt.
Dual coding is regularly confused with the visual learning style. It says combine verbal and visual representations, for every learner; learning styles say pick one channel per learner. The first is an instruction about the material, the second a claim about people that failed.
Draw the process next to the definition rather than instead of it, and annotate the diagram in your own words.
Measure your Dual Coding profile
Take the Learning Style test to discover where you fall. Instant result with full breakdown and matching careers.
Take the Learning Style Test