Over the last decades, a multitude of results in educational and psychological research have shown that the implementation of multiple external representations (MERs) in educational contexts represents a valuable tool for fostering learning and problem-solving skills. The context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has received great attention because it necessitates using various symbolic (e.g., text and formula) and graphical representations (e.g., pictures and graphs) to convey subject content. Research has mainly explored effects of combining two representations, but the potential benefits of integrating more than two representations on students’ learning remain underexplored. This gap limits our understanding of promising educational practices and restricts the development of effective teaching strategies catering to students’ cognitive needs. To close this gap, we conducted a systematic review of 46 studies and a meta-analysis that included 132 effect sizes to evaluate the effectiveness of using more than two representations in STEM education and to identify moderating factors influencing learning and problem-solving. A network diagram analysis revealed that the advantages of learning and problem-solving with MERs are also applicable to more than two representations. A subsequent meta-analysis revealed that the learning with more than two representations in STEM can have advantageous effects on students cognitive load (\({\text{Hedges}}{^\prime}g =0.324,~p<.001,~95\%~\text{CI}~[0.164, 0.484]\)) and performance (\({\text{Hedges}}{^\prime}g =0.118,~p<.001,~95\%~\text{CI}~[0.050, 0.185]\)) compared to learning with two representations without notable differences in learning time. The analysis of moderating factors revealed that benefits of learning with more than two representations primarily depend on the provision of appropriate support.

在过去的几十年里，教育和心理学研究的大量结果表明，在教育环境中实施多种外部表征 （MER） 是培养学习和解决问题技能的宝贵工具。科学、技术、工程和数学 （STEM） 教育的背景受到了极大的关注，因为它需要使用各种符号（例如文本和公式）和图形表示（例如图片和图形）来传达学科内容。研究主要探讨了结合两种表征的效果，但整合两种以上表征对学生学习的潜在好处仍未得到充分探索。这种差距限制了我们对有前途的教育实践的理解，并限制了满足学生认知需求的有效教学策略的发展。为了缩小这一差距，我们对 46 项研究进行了系统评价，并进行了一项包括 132 种效应大小的荟萃分析，以评估在 STEM 教育中使用两种以上表示形式的有效性，并确定影响学习和解决问题的调节因素。网络图分析表明，使用 MER 学习和解决问题的优势也适用于两种以上的表示。随后的荟萃分析显示，与使用两种表示形式相比，STEM 中两种以上表示的学习对学生的认知负荷（\（{\text{Hedges}}{^\prime}g =0.324，~p<.001，~95\%~\text{CI}~[0.164， 0.484]\））和表现（\（{\text{Hedges}}{^\prime}g =0.118，~p<.001，~95\%~\text{CI}~[0.050， 0.185]\））产生有利影响。 对调节因素的分析表明，使用两种以上表征进行学习的好处主要取决于提供适当的支持。