  The comprehension of business process models is crucial for enterprises.
Prior research has shown that children as well as adolescents perceive and
interpret graphical representations in a different manner compared to
grown-ups. To evaluate this, observations in the context of business process
models are presented in this paper obtained from a study on visual literacy in
cultural education. We demonstrate that adolescents without expertise in
process model comprehension are able to correctly interpret business process
models expressed in terms of BPMN 2.0. In a comprehensive study, n = 205
learners (i.e., pupils at the age of 15) needed to answer questions related to
process models they were confronted with, reflecting different levels of
complexity. In addition, process models were created with varying styles of
element labels. Study results indicate that an abstract description (i.e.,
using only alphabetic letters) of process models is understood more easily
compared to concrete or pseudo} descriptions. As benchmark, results are
compared with the ones of modeling experts (n = 40). Amongst others, study
findings suggest using abstract descriptions in order to introduce novices to
process modeling notations. With the obtained insights, we highlight that
process models can be properly comprehended by novices.
