The Effect of Visual and Verbal Scaffoldings on Web-Based Problem Solving Performance

The study aimed to investigate the differential effects of visual and verbal scaffoldings on web-based problem solving performance. A quasi-experiment with 143 high school students in South Korea was administered. Each student's visualization tendency score was obtained at the beginning of the study. Based on the visualization tendency scores, students were divided into two groups; low and high level visualization tendency groups. Then each group was split in half and randomly assigned to one of the two lessons - one with visual scaffolding and the other with verbal scaffolding. The contents of the two lessons were the same. All students' performance was measured through an essay assignment for a problem solving at the end of the lesson. The result showed that the visual scaffolding group outperformed the verbal scaffolding group (F=22.54, p<.01), regardless of each student's visualization tendency level. The effect size was 0.81, indicating high practical significance. There was no statistically significant interaction effect between scaffolding modalities and students' visualization tendency levels. These findings imply that visual scaffolding is an effective strategy to promote students' problem solving performance.