The authors describe a situation where the class they were teaching developed, through class discussion, the techniques to write a theme. (MF)

Variables affecting long-term retention are examined: (1) learner history--including ability, prior knowledge and self-confidence; (2) events (teaching techniques) occurring immediately before reading; (3) events occurring during reading; and (4) events in the retention interval, particularly practice effects. The ACT associationist model is used…

A study investigated the relationship between high and low reading ability and the study techniques of reading, the usual method of note taking, and student-generated paragraph summaries on the six levels of cognitive learning from textual material as measured by Bloom's "Taxonomy." Subjects, 84 college students enrolled in an…

The general hypotheses derived from a series of six experiments in instructional theory were as follows: that the individually optimal reading sequence of juxtaposed, but mutally related, prose text depends on learning goal and pre-knowledge; that adult learners are able to approach this reading sequence through their own decisions; and that…

This study investigated the effect on learning of the interspersing of questions with sections of written discourse. A 5,200-word passage was divided into seven sections, from each of which several completion questions were derived. A pair of questions was inserted before, after, or both before and after the section. These questions also formed an…

A sample of 208 students from grades ten through twelve were randomly assigned to one of four groups in a study of the effects of multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and constructed modes of response to embedded questions on the learner's ability to answer application-type questions. The three experimental groups received five instructional…

This study extended concepts derived from Rothkopf's mathemagenic hypothesis to problem solving. While previous mathemagenic research has established that adjunct questions interspersed with written prose facilitates learning, it has been criticized as educationally nonsignificant because the research has focused on verbatim learning. To test…

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…

In a series of experiments, it was found that asking questions about information in a prose sequence while it is being presented can affect the degree to which that prose material is stored as a unitized whole, and that this in turn will affect how well that prose is remembered. (Editor)

College students read prose passages and answered either verbatim or paraphrased inserted questions while reading under review or no review conditions. On a posttest students who received paraphrased questions outperformed students who received verbatim questions. This result supported the contention that paraphrased adjunct questions could…

Kindergarten and first-grade children listened to a narrative passage under one of five experimental conditions. Prelearning imagery instructions did not facilitate subsequent recall of story information. Similarly intermittently provided pictures did not produce recall gains for unpictured story information, but had a positive effect on recall of…

Research from four subareas of prose learning (advance organizers, response modes, objectives, and inserted questions) is considered and weaknesses in the studies conducted are noted. Suggestions are advanced as to how researchers might profitably spend their energies in the future. (RC)

College students read passages and answered either verbatim or parphrased adjunct questions either inserted in the text or massed at the end of the passage. Passage review was varied. On the post-test containing unfamiliar paraphrased questions, students given inserted paraphrased adjunct questions outperformed the others. Paraphrased questions…

A paired-associate memory task with pictures and words as items was used to categorize fourth graders into four learner types (high/low picture x high/low word performance). Poor paired-associate learners profited more than did good paired-associate learners from picture aids on the prose task. (Author/BW)

Two groups of undergraduates were forced to process a maplike organizer before or after reading a difficult prose passage concerning the formation of a meander. Subjects with little prior knowledge, provided with the organizer, recalled at a level similar to subjects with a good deal of background knowledge. (Author/CM)