Number Lines Can Be More Effective at Facilitating Adults' Performance on Health-Related Ratio Problems Than Risk Ladders and Icon Arrays.

Visual displays, such as icon arrays and risk ladders, are often used to communicate numerical health information. Number lines improve reasoning with rational numbers but are seldom used in health contexts. College students solved ratio problems related to COVID-19 (e.g., number of deaths and number of cases) in one of four randomly assigned conditions: icon arrays, risk ladders, number lines, or no accompanying visual display. As predicted, number lines facilitated performance on these problems—the number line condition outperformed the other visual display conditions, which did not perform any better than the no visual display condition. In addition, higher performance on the health-related ratio problems was associated with higher COVID-19 worry for oneself and others, higher perceptions of COVID-19 severity, and higher endorsement of intentions to engage in preventive health behaviors, even when controlling for baseline math skills. These findings have important implications for effectively presenting health statistics. Public Significance Statement: In Fall 2020, college students who had just returned to campus after the COVID-19 shutdown were better able to solve health-related ratio problems (e.g., comparing the number of deaths and number of cases of COVID-19) when they were paired with number lines than when they were paired with other visual displays commonly used to communicate health statistics (i.e., icon arrays and risk ladders). Number lines are seldom used in health contexts but may be a valuable tool for communicating health-related ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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