2025 AIChE Annual Meeting

Diverse Learning Tools for Neurodiverse Learners: The Effectiveness of Comics and Videos and Engagement Patterns in STEM Education

As STEM fields increasingly recognize the importance of diversity for innovation and problem-solving, there is growing interest in developing pedagogical approaches that appeal to the unique cognitive strengths of neurodiverse learners. It is the responsibility of academic institutions to provide equitable resources for all students, ensuring that classroom content appeals to students with a wide range of learning styles and needs. One method to do so is to implement various learning tools, like comics with instructional content, into classroom settings. Visual-based tools such as these may be particularly beneficial to students who are neurodiverse, as they tend to prefer visual-based learning modalities. These tools help reduce cognitive load and enhance comprehension.

This investigation utilized a mixed-method approach with 19 neurodiverse college students to compare the effectiveness of three content formats (video, comic, and article) in teaching STEM concepts. Results revealed significant differences in effectiveness ratings between content types (p < 0.05), with video content receiving the highest average effectiveness rating (8.05 out of 10), followed by comics (7.42 out of 10), and articles receiving a significantly lower average rating (6.39 out of 10). While participants reported relatively balanced preferences when identifying which single format helped them understand the most (Article n=5, Comic n=6, Video n=7), an important pattern emerged for motivational factors: 68.4% of participants identified comics as the most engaging format and 57.8% selected comics as the most enjoyable tool to use.

These findings demonstrate that while multiple formats can facilitate learning, comics and videos function as "universal design" tools that accommodate diverse cognitive processing styles without systematically disadvantaging any learner group. The results also showed that students were more engaged with multimodal learning tools, an important predictor of student success. Implementing format diversity in STEM education is not as accommodation for struggling students, but as fundamental practice for equitable, high-quality education.