The Impact of Active Visualisation of High School Students on the Ability to Memorise Verbal Definitions

The era of visual communication influences the cognitive strategies of the individual. Education, too, must adjust to these changes, which raises questions regarding the use of visualisation in teaching. In the present study, we examine the impact of visualisation on the ability of high school students to memorise text. In the theoretical part of the research, we first clarify the concept of visualisation. We define the concept of active visualisation and visualisation as a means of acquiring and conveying knowledge, and we describe the different kinds of visualisation (appearance-based analogies and form-based analogies), specifically defining appearance-based schemata visualisations (where imagery is articulated in a typical culturally trained manner). In the empirical part of the research, we perform an experiment in which we evaluate the effects of visualisation on students’ ability to memorise a difficult written definition. According to the theoretical findings, we establish two hypotheses. In the first, we assume that the majority of the visualisations that students form will be appearance-based schemata visualisations. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that, in visualisation, people spontaneously use analogies based on imagery and schemas that are typical of their society. In the second hypothesis, we assume that active visualisation will contribute to the students’ ability to memorise text in a statistically significant way. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that the combination of verbal and visual experiences enhances cognitive learning. Both hypotheses were confirmed in the research. As our study only dealt with the impact of the most spontaneous type of appearancebased schemata visualisations, we see further possibilities in researching the influence of visualisations that are more complex formally.