Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2005 (C2005)DOI: 10.1007/s10648-005-8136-3The Promise and Practice of Learner-GeneratedDrawing: Literature Review and SynthesisPeggy Van Meter1,3and Joanna Garner2This article explores learner-generated drawing, a strategy in which learn-ers construct representative illustrations in support of learning goals. Bothapplied and empirical literature is reviewed with the purpose of stimulatingresearch on this strategy. Clear from this review is the gap that exists betweenprescriptive readings on learner-generated drawing and research-based un-derstandings. To make sense of inconsistent empirical evidence, the researchreview is organized around a series of hypotheses grounded in current under-standings of cognitive and strategic processing. A theoretical framework forunderstanding the drawing strategy is proposed by extending R. E. Mayer’s(1993) theoretical processes of selection, organization, and integration. Theframework is intended to guide and organize future research efforts and, tothat end, earlier proposed hypotheses are incorporated into the explanatoryconstructs of this theoretical perspective. The article concludes with a discus-sion of how strategy instruction might play a role in the effectiveness of thedrawing strategy.KEY WORDS: drawing; learning strategy; comprehension strategy; cognitive processes.A hallmark of sophisticated, expert-like performance is the ability tothink flexibly and to transfer knowledge across contexts. In part, this pro-cess is reliant on an underlying cognitive structure in which knowledge isintegrated across varying representations (de Jong and Ferguson-Hessler,1986; Silver, 1979), representations either within or between modalities1Department of Educational and School Psychology and Special Education, The PennsylvaniaState University, University Park, Pennsylvania.2Cognitive Learning Centers, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.3Correspondence should be addressed to Peggy Van Meter, 203 CEDAR Building, UniversityPark, Pennsylvania 16802; e-mail: [email protected]/05/1200-0285/0C2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.286 Van Meter and Garner(Van Someren et al., 1998). When a student can translate a data tableto a linear function (Haverty et al., 2000) or use illustrated text to solvetransfer problems (Mayer and Sims, 1994), that student is assessed as func-tioning at a higher level relative to a student who struggles with these ac-tivities. As critical as integration is, learners have a difficult time workingwith more than one format and integrating verbal and nonverbal repre-sentations of complex content (e.g., Scanlon, 1998; Tabachneck-Schiif andSimon, 1998). Given both the value and challenge of this process, strategiesthat facilitate the integration of different representations, particularly thosethat cross modalities, have great potential for improving student learning.Learner-generated drawing is one such strategy because drawing involvesthe construction of an internal, nonverbal representation that is mappedonto elements of the alternative, provided representation. The purpose ofthis article is to make the case that learner-generated drawing is a strategythat warrants thorough, systematic study.Although learner-generated drawing received some attention in themid to late 1970s, research interest dried up by the mid 1980s. We believethe loss of interest is partially attributable to inconsistent findings and abody of research which, on balance, is rather disappointing. Along withthe obvious value briefly stated above, there are two additional reasonsfor renewing interest in learner-generated drawing. First, an abundanceof prescriptive publications available to classroom teachers tout learner-generated drawing as a strategy that can meet a number of educational ob-jectives. This is true despite a lack of evidence to support most applications.It is not that these prescriptions are necessarily wrong; rather, the researchevidence addressing drawing as a learning process is inconsistent, silent, orqualifying. To highlight the distance between research and practice, the re-view section of this article begins with an overview of the applied literaturebefore synthesizing the empirical research. We hope the juxtaposition ofan array of implementations against scant research evidence will stimulatea systematic program of research to close the gap between recommendedpractices and empirical support.Our second reason for stimulating this research line is embeddedthroughout our review of research and presented in full in the final sectionof the article. Specifically, we believe that current understandings of cogni-tive and strategic processing can be applied to analyze the inconsistenciesof past research and to develop a series of testable hypotheses. To achievethis, the research review is organized around a set of three hypotheses.These hypotheses demonstrate that findings once thought confounding areactually quite predictable. Finally, the theoretical model proposed in thisarticle is included as a framework which can guide and organize a system-atic research effort. Notwithstanding the importance of applied researchThe Promise and Practice of Learner-Generated Drawing 287questions for their own sake, this framework is necessary for the develop-ment of a cohesive body of research.Before these objectives can be accomplished however, the meaning of“learner-generated drawing” must first be more carefully defined. To thisend, the following section is dedicated to clarifying the definition of thelearner-generated drawing strategy as it is considered in this article.LEARNER-GENERATED DRAWING: STRATEGIC,REPRESENTATIVE, AND CONSTRUCTIVEAlthough specific objectives and drawing methods vary across imple-mentations, learner-generated drawing is defined as a strategy in whichlearners construct drawing(s) to achieve a learning goal. Drawing is consid-ered a strategic process because it matches several dimensions along whichstrategies are defined: learner-generated drawing is goal-directed, servesto organize knowledge, and, when matched to the task, improves learning(Paris et al., 1983). As such, learner-generated drawing is similar to otherstrategies such as summarization, self-questioning, or prior knowledge acti-vation. As a strategic process, the behavior of producing a drawn, externalrepresentation is believed to direct underlying cognitive processes respon-sible for task performance (Van