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What is dual coding?

Integrating information in varying formats – text, images, diagrams – into lessons can help pupils to process and organise new information

Dual coding involves presenting information in multiple different formats - for example in writing and in pictures - to support pupils’ understanding.

The EEF view: What does the research say?

Underpinning this strategy is the theory that working memory processes visual and spatial information differently from auditory information. As such, dual coding covers both bases to increase the possibility that learning will stick.

The idea is that teachers can integrate a variety of formats of information into their lessons, such as text, images, diagrams or equations.

Our evidence review - Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom - suggests that dual coding has mixed effects. While, overall, the impact is positive, studies frequently reported no effect, or sometimes even a negative impact, on pupil learning.

Teachers should therefore think carefully about how they use visual representations in their practice.

Although the evidence is too weak to tell us what works, there are some lessons we can take from it, which might support stronger effects. For example, ensuring that images are informational rather than decorative means that they are more likely to support learning rather than placing an unnecessary strain on cognitive load.

Overall, though, the many different formats in which information can be presented - such as text, images, diagrams, equations or combinations of any of these - mean that teachers must make difficult decisions about which format to use without necessarily knowing how this will affect pupils’ cognitive load and learning.

How does dual coding work in the classroom?

Kirstin Mulholland, a lecturer in education at Northumbria University, recommends three ways to use dual coding effectively in the classroom: diagrams and visual organisers, summarising information, and manipulatives and representations.

Diagrams and visual organisers, she says, can make relationships explicit and accessible in investigations or texts. Using a visualiser or whiteboard, and drawing process diagrams and flowcharts while giving verbal explanations can help pupils to organise and make sense of new information.

When pupils are required to process and organise a lot of information, dual coding may support the development of cognitive schema by helping pupils to make links between information and prior learning. For example, teachers can summarise key points from a class debate using a simple table format to show the pros and cons. In history, pupils can be asked to create timelines to sequence events and identify causal links.

And in maths, pupils could be encouraged to create their own visual representations of their maths work, by drawing out what is happening in a maths problem. For example: “There are eight children on the bus. It pulls up at a bus stop. Three children get out and one gets in. How many children are on the bus now?”

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