Towards critical appraisal of infographics as scientific inscriptions

TLDR

Teaching young adults to interpret and create multimodal science infographics is challenging because no guide exists to assess their quality or effectiveness, and the study links this issue to science education, communication, and technology studies literature while outlining future research directions. The study aims to identify components of science infographics that can be emphasized in instructional settings. The authors examined six professionally produced infographics by presenting two to each of ten experts in science, graphic design, and learning sciences, who critically appraised and evaluated the artifacts. Inductive analysis of the experts’ transcripts revealed five overarching categories of infographic features, which can serve as instructional inputs for teaching and creating science infographics and other visual representations. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., J Res Sci Teach 52: 868–893.

Abstract

Teaching young adults about interpreting and creating the sort of multimodal infographics increasingly prevalent in science communication creates considerable challenges for teachers and practitioners, as there is no guide to determine the quality or effectiveness of this new genre of inscriptional forms, and to scaffold students' performances in the learning process. In this study, we begin to address this challenge by identifying components of science infographics that can be focused on in instructional settings. Using six infographics developed by professionals and published online, we gained insight from 10 individuals with expertise in science, graphic/information design, and learning sciences on their thinking about graphic and information design related to science. Each participant was provided with two infographics and was asked to critically appraise by interpreting and evaluating the quality of each artifact. Inductive analysis of transcripts using constant comparison method resulted in five super-ordinate categories, some with subcategories, representing aspects of infographics these experts attend to. The identified categories can be used as inputs in teaching and learning about the use and creation of science infographics and broadly visual representations. Connections to the literature on science education, science communication, and science and technology studies are made, and directions for future research described. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 868–893, 2015.