Does Realism Harm Metacomprehension Accuracy?

Previous work has shown that the presence of graphics can have detrimental effects on metacomprehension accuracy. However, many of these investigations have included graphics that are not pedagogically relevant. The present work attempted to determine whether the presence of realism in pedagogically-relevant graphics affects learners’ ability to judge their comprehension of biology topics. Participants read a set of texts accompanied by either realistic graphics composed only of depictive elements, conventional graphics composed only of abstract symbols and text, hybrid graphics that combined the realistic and conventional elements of the first two conditions, or the graphic caption only. Participants then judged their comprehension of each text and took comprehension tests. Results revealed that conventional graphics were worst in relative metacomprehension accuracy.