Many educators and practitioners use presentations on a daily basis, but which type of visual aids should one
employ? The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning has already provided us with a number of easy-to-follow
guidelines regarding this, but these are limited to the single slide. If technology opens up this slide to an infinite
canvas, and one can place the presentation items on this, it becomes less clear which principles to take into account.
On the one hand, evidence-based literature about graphic organizers has demonstrated its positive impact on
learning when students are asked to construct them. On the other hand, based on the findings of this paper there is
no clear indication that graphic organizers as delivered via presentation software can positively affect learning
outcome, self-efficacy, perceived mental effort and appreciation of the learning material. Our previous research and
this paper’s findings suggest that the impact depends on the educational context. Students who are familiar with
presentations probably prefer the version with graphic organizers to the traditional deck of slides. This novelty effect
(Burke 2008) is possibly absent with lesser experienced students, who would question the usefulness of these
elaborately designed presentations.
Further research could change the real-life learning setting of this experiment to a more laboratory-like situation
to closely detect the impact of graphic organizers on students from secondary education. Furthermore, it might be
interesting to examine the impact of graphic organizers on students’ performance and self-efficacy when they
themselves employ these to deliver a presentation.