Document Type : Original Research Paper
Authors
Educational Technology Department, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Today, one of the main challenges of elementary education is to increase students' comprehension and academic engagement. One of the new educational strategies to achieve this goal is the use of educational comics. Comics can make the learning process more attractive and effective due to the combination of images and text. Despite numerous studies on the effect of comics on learning, the role of the type of comic producer (teacher or student) has not been studied much. Also, no research has been conducted in Iran that compares teacher-made and student-made comics. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of teacher-made and student-made comics on fourth-grade elementary school students' comprehension and academic engagement in Persian lessons.
Methods: The study utilizes a quasi-experimental design with a multi-group pretest-posttest format, including two experimental groups and one control group. The statistical population consists of all fourth-grade students in the central district of Pakdasht during the 2024-2025 academic year. A total of 90 students were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to three groups of thirty students each. The experimental groups received instruction using teacher-created and student-created comics, while the control group followed traditional teaching methods. To collect data, researchers employed a reading comprehension test specifically developed for the study, alongside the Reeve Academic Engagement Questionnaire. To ensure validity, expert opinions from professors and teachers were gathered, and the validity of the reading comprehension test was confirmed with a CVR score of approximately 70%. Reliability was established using Cronbach’s alpha, resulting in a score of 0.707. The Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was applied to interpret the collected data.
Findings: The results reveal that comics significantly improved students' reading comprehension (F = 12.816, p = 0.000) and academic engagement (F = 15.906, p = 0.000). Additionally, the results of Scheffe’s test indicate no statistically significant difference in reading comprehension between teacher-created and student-created comics (p = 0.057). However, concerning academic engagement (Sig < 0.05), significant differences were observed between the groups using comics and the control group following conventional teaching methods.
Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that comics serve as effective tools for enhancing both reading comprehension and academic engagement. Among the two types of comics, teacher-created comics had a stronger impact on reading comprehension due to their structured design, while student-created comics facilitated higher engagement by actively involving students in the learning process. The combination of compelling visuals and minimal text in comics makes them an efficient medium for transmitting educational concepts. Significant differences were noted in academic engagement among the three groups: teacher-created comics, student-created comics, and the control group. In all four dimensions of academic engagement, student-created comics showed considerable differences compared to the control group. In behavioral and agentic engagement, teacher-created and student-created comics exhibited significant variations. Additionally, in cognitive engagement, teacher- created comics displayed noticeable differences compared to the control group. Given these results, integrating both teacher-created and student-created comics into instructional practices can provide educators with valuable strategies for improving reading comprehension and fostering student engagement.
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© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
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