Two experiments investigate whether advance organizers (1) help subjects with good reasoning skills compensate for poor memory or information overload; and (2) compensate for distractions. Findings suggest that the organizer technique does not help compensate for processing deficits related to information overload or distracting study conditions.…

An experiment with 109 college students examined the effects of advance organizers and repeating a lecture on test performance. Advance organizers that integrated subtopic information (linear and matrix organizers) increased recall of subtopic information but more general organizers (conventional) aided overall recall, especially general topic…

Tests Ausubel's (1960) subsumption theory of learning in the context of children's use of causal and logical connectives. Predicts that the acquisition of prior cognitive structure organizers would facilitate the learning and retention of subsequently presented concepts and logical operations and lead to a decrease of syncretic reasoning and…

Twenty-nine reports yielding 112 studies were analyzed with Glass's meta-analysis technique, and results were compared with predictions from Ausubel's model of assimilative learning. Overall, advance organizers were shown to be associated with increased learning and retention of material to be learned. (Author)

College students were given a topically relevant or irrelevant outline and asked to generate propositions about the topics by drawing on existing knowledge prior to studying an instructional text. Results of conceptual clustering analyses suggest that organization was one of the mechanisms by which topical outlines increased meaningful text…

This study demonstrated a reliable method of determining the attributes of prose materials on an imagery-concreteness scale, and evaluated the effects of an advance organizer and a learning passage on learning and retention when the attributes of these passages are defined on a concrete-imagery continuum. (Author/PN)

Retention of prose is examined as it is affected by (1) outlines as advanced organizers; (2) preexperimental familiarity with the material; and (3) text genre. Findings are discussed in the context of current theories in cognitive psychology, particularly those of structure, organization, and representation of knowledge and prose. (Author/GK)

Investigates the effects of an advance organizer lesson, presenting high-order science concepts and an elementary problem solving strategy for determining causal relations on children's use of operations of exclusion (as defined by Inhelder and Piaget, 1958). Results suggest that acceptable solutions to problems requiring the operations of…

The accuracy of the feeling-of-knowing was assessed with regard to recall and recognition under three conditions: advanced or nonadvanced organizers; learned or nonlearned information; and sex differences. Twenty subjects learned pair-associates and were tested for recall and recognition, accompanied by ratings of feeling-of-knowing strength.…

Advance organizer effectiveness for disadvantaged seventh graders was investigated. The influence of the organizer was assessed under two testing formats: recall and recognition. The organizer was shown to be effective, regardless of the testing conditions. (Author/GK)

Effects of Advance Organizer (AO) lessons presenting high-order math concepts relating to set building, matching and between sets, and counting objects within sets were evaluated for rural preschoolers in comparison to traditional instruction. A pre-test/post-test assessment indicated a significant sequential transfer effect from the AO lessons.…