The Impact of Using Multi Modal Representations within Writing to Learn Activities on Learning Electricity Unit at 6th Grade

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate effects of embedding particular modal representation into writing to
learn activities in learning 6th grade electricity unit. Study sample includes 75 sixth grade students within 4 classes. All
treatment groups prepared a letter to the 5th graders explaining what they have learnt. The 1st treatment group wrote letter
including only textual expressions. The 2nd group wrote letter that including any modes. The 3rd group wrote letter including
textual expressions and graphical modes. The 4th group wrote letter including textual expressions and mathematical modes.
The findings indicated that preparing a writing to learn activity with embedded multi modal representations does scaffolds
students understanding of force. Further, the benefit was superior when a particular mode (math or graph) was asked to be
embedded.