Can student-generated illustrations be worth ten thousand words?

The major purpose of the present study was to determine if reader-generated illustrations are as effective as experimenter-provided illustrations in providing students with the ability to understand scientific explanations. In addition, the authors were interested in replicating work by R. E. Mayer and colleagues (e.g., R. E. Mayer R. E. Mayer & J. K. Gallini, 1990) using different texts. The authors found that students with text and illustrations and students who generated their own illustrations performed better on a problem-solving test than students with text only and that there were no significant differences in performance between the former 2 groups.