2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As STEM fields increasingly recognize the importance of diversity for innovation and problem-solving, a growing interest develops in the creation of pedagogical approaches that appeal to the distinctive cognitive strengths of neurodiverse learners. Academic institutions have an important responsibility to ensure that all students have equal access to resources and to make classroom content accessible and engaging for students with a variety of learning styles. One way to achieve this equitability is by integrating different learning tools, such as comics with instructional content, into the classroom. Neurodiverse students may especially benefit from these visual-based learning tools. These tools help reduce cognitive load and improve 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. Student responses revealed significant differences in effectiveness ratings between content types (p < 0.05), with video content receiving the highest average effectiveness rating (8.05 on a scale from 1-10), followed by comics (7.42 on a scale from 1-10), and articles receiving a significantly lower average rating (6.39 on a scale from 1-10). 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 percent of participants identified comics as the most engaging format and 57.8 percent selected comics as the most enjoyable tool to use.

These findings demonstrate that while multiple formats can facilitate learning, comics and videos provide particular benefits for neurodiverse students. As the visual and sequential aspects of the learning tool’s format appeal to the neurodiverse population, engagement and enjoyability both increase. The results also demonstrated 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.