The Convergence of Text and Graphics in an Online Learning Environment: a Case Study in Economics

While much visually oriented teaching material that uses the new technologies is being developed, there is little understanding or research into the demands such material makes on students’ information processing. This paper outlines an innovative approach to teaching complex economic models that incorporates the convergence of text and graphics in instructional material in an online learning environment. The Interactive International Trade (IIT) program is designed to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning by the effective, efficient and innovative use of graphics as well as equations and text in teaching material on the World Wide Web. The paper describes the implementation and initial evaluation of this approach to teaching economics. It proposes that the technical capacity to be able to generate dynamic graphics in teaching material needs to be distinguished from the issue of whether or not the generation of dynamic graphics is likely to have desirable perceptual and cognitive consequences for students. The findings will give us some indication of how this type of instructional material is impacting on student learning, identify ways it can be improved and provide some guidelines for the future development of similar material to support student learning.