Kools, M., van de Wiel, M. W. J., Ruiter, R. A. C., Crüts, A., & Kok, G. (2006). The effect of graphic organizers on subjective and objective comprehension of a health education text. Health Education & Behavior, 33(6), 760-772.

Kools, M.; van de Wiel, M.; Ruiter, R.; Crüts, A.; Kok, G.

2006

Kools, M., van de Wiel, M. W. J., Ruiter, R. A. C., Crüts, A., & Kok, G. (2006). The effect of graphic organizers on subjective and objective comprehension of a health education text. Health Education & Behavior, 33(6), 760-772.

This study examined the effect of graphic organizers on the comprehension of a health education brochure text and compared subjective with objective comprehension measures. Graphic organizers are graphical depictions of relations among concepts in a text. Participants read a brochure text about asthma with and without these organizers, and subjective and objective text comprehension was measured. It was found that graphic organizers had effects on four levels of objective comprehension as indicated by open comprehension questions. However, on the subjective comprehension measure using Likert-type scales, the groups with and without graphic organizers did not differ from each other. It is concluded that health education texts could benefit from relatively simple techniques to increase comprehension. Furthermore, in developing health education materials, comprehension should be measured objectively.

The results show a strong effect of the graphic organizers on text comprehension not only at the text base macro level but also on the other three text comprehension levels: the text base micro level, the situation model micro level, and the situation model macro level. Evidently, the graphic organizers helped the readers not only to grasp the macro structure of the text on the text base level but to remember details on the text base micro level and build a situation model of the global and local text content, fostering deeper understanding on both levels.

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