A look at an experiment using prose in which questions are categorized as 1) active; or 2) passive. (HB)

High cognitive processing capacity (CPC) students were superior to low-CPC students in prose learning. Of the four learning modes--programmed instruction (PI), control, chunking study outline, and adjunct questions--PI was the most effective. Substantial CPC and performance correlations and poor long-term retention suggested that PI was not best…

The purpose of this study was threefold: to determine whether adding a mnemonic to systematically designed instruction would improve verbal retention, to establish whether retention is better for concrete or abstract information, and to determine whether mental imagery or verbal elaboration is more effective for learning concrete or abstract…

Discusses five instructional strategies for increasing the meaningfulness of technical or scientific information. These include organization of prose, use of concrete analogies as advance organizers, use of inserted questions in prose, elaboration activities such as note-taking and discovery learning. (JN)