This study examined the utility of intact and embedded headings as processing aids with nonnarrative text. College students provided with text containing intact and embedded headings outperformed students whose text did not contain these processing aids, especially at delayed testing. Implications of these results and future research issues are…

A college English professor turned children's poet discusses his approach to teaching poetry to children, which begins by recognizing the child as a person with an intellect. (AEA)

Two studies assessed the effects of material incentives and feedback on the use of rehearsal by first grade children. Subjects were required to remember the order in which the experimenter pointed to simple objects and rehearsal was assessed by observing lip movements during a 15-second retention interval. (Author/DB)

Instructions were given to first and sixth graders to use an imagery-retrieval strategy in recalling 18 paired associates. (SS)

Describes an experiment in which a subject spent more than 230 hours of practice in a laboratory and was able to increase his memory span from 7 to 79 digits. The results suggest that practice with an appropriate mnemonic system can increase memory performance. (Author/SA)

Rating-related dimensions led to narrow encodings, thus hindering low-anxiety subjects who normally encode broadly. Even explicit ratings of unrelated dimensions did not induce high-anxiety subjects to encode more broadly, which may indicate inflexibility in deploying memory strategies. (Author)

Asserts that getting students to apply their knowledge in new situations is important, noting that reaching this goal generally requires that students have a large share of knowledge of the relevant topic. Describes rote versus inflexible knowledge, explaining that inflexible knowledge is the normal foundation for expertise and discussing how…

Research has demonstrated increased retention from drill, but the data regarding drill format are inconsistent. Two commonly used models, Drill Sandwich (DS) and Incremental Rehearsal (IR), were compared to each other and to a traditional flashcard method. The IR model consistently led to significantly more words retained than the traditional or…

Factors affecting the memorableness of 228 children's personal narratives were examined by requesting incidental free recall of the narratives from 116 subjects. Narratives with sensational content were recalled more frequently than nonsensational ones, indicating the major contribution of content to memorableness. Highpoint structural…

Studied the relationship between learning and understanding and the meaning of memorization with 78 distance learners at the University of the South Pacific through interviews. Identified two meanings of memorization, one with understanding and one without. Discusses the implications for distance education. (SLD)

Develops in detail implications for teaching of the arbitrary and necessary curriculum divide. Discusses practical ways forward for teachers who plan lessons and work in the classroom with sensitivity to this divide. Concentrates on teaching and learning arbitrary aspects of the curriculum. Arbitrary is in realm of memory and students have the job…

Defines dichotomous keys as common learning tools based on identification rather than memorization. Provides an example of a dichotomous key developed for introducing histology in human anatomy and physiology (A&P) courses and explains how students can use the dichotomous key. Discusses the goals of the exercises and the process of…

Divided attention at encoding leads to a significant decline in memory performance, whereas divided attention during retrieval has relatively little effect; nevertheless, retrieval carries significant secondary task costs, especially for older adults. The authors further investigated the effects of divided attention in younger and older adults by…

The authors conducted 2 experiments to study the metrics of spatial distance in a mental imagery task. In both experiments, participants first memorized the layout of a building containing 10 rooms with 24 objects. Participants then received mental imagery instructions and imagined how they walked through the building from one room to another. The…