The Effect of Graphic Organizers on Subjective and Objective Comprehension of a Health Education Text

Universiteit Maastricht, Department of Experimental Psychology, Netherlands.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: M.Kools{at}psychology.unimaas.nl.

	Abstract

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.

Key Words: graphic organizer, brochure text, comprehension

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