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COMICS VERSUS TEXT IN ENVIROMENTAL EDUCATION: A COMPARATIVE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Abstract
Future planetary sustainability depends on the capacities of today s learners. Environmental education must therefore foster durable understanding and sustained motivation, yet many topics impose high cognitive demands while competing for pupils interest. This theoretical paper presents a practical evaluation framework for comparing educational comics with information-equivalent expository text across four outcomes: memory, conceptual understanding, enjoyment/motivation, and perceived cognitive load. Grounded in Cognitive Load Theory, Dual Coding, and research on visual narrative and visual literacy, the framework links specific design features (e.g., signalling, spatial contiguity, coherence, narration) to target constructs and identifies boundary conditions to record, including topic complexity, prior knowledge, visual literacy, design quality, and time-on-task. It sets out a clear procedure for fair comparison verifying that both materials teach the same idea units, are matched on readability and accessibility, and require similar study time together with recommended operationalisations for recall, transfer, interest/enjoyment, and mental effort. The framework enables researchers and practitioners to determine whether comics and text yield similar or different outcomes in their own context, without assuming a direction of effect. The contribution is a transferable, theory-informed method for designing and reporting rigorous comparisons, supporting cumulative evidence and practical curriculum decisions about when to present environmental content as comics versus text.
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References12
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