Two assessment endeavors were undertaken to determine the relative impact of alphanumeric and graphic instructional mediators upon intentional and incidental learning outcomes in applied instructional contexts. The intent of these investigations was to determine the feasibility of embedding strategic organizational cues within instruction to…

The functions of blocking text with horizontal rules and providing headings of different types are discussed. Headings may be encoded or function as access structures, while blocking segments text and provides retrieval cues. These issues were tested in two experiments. College students read a 2000-word passage. In the first experiment, no…

One way to minimize the test taking advantage that test-wise students have is to offer all students the opportunity to become test-wise through formal instruction in test taking. This paper describes the development and use of "Form Z," a test that can be used as a teaching aid or as a research instrument for test wiseness. The test was designed…

Study supported by grants from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation and from the U.S. Office of Education.

Thirty-eight bidialectical rural Hawaiian children participated in a study to determine if they would display clustering in a cued recall task and to explore the possible influence of dialect usage on recall performance. For purposes of the study, "clustering" was defined as the ability of subjects to recall list items by category…

In order to study young children's awareness of interword space as a cueing convention and determine their ability to deal with language on an abstract level, 23 black kindergarten children who had been exposed to formal reading instruction were tested. In the first test children were asked to study cards on which a single word or groups of words…

This experiment was designed to determine how oral report activities, following exposure to an informative message, can influence children's retention of topical and factual information from the message. The message was a prose passage about modes of transportation. Second grade students (N=51) were subjects. A third of the children presented oral…

Verbal and nonverbal cues in the working environment are examined in the hope of leading to better morale and productivity. Among topics covered are furniture arrangements, status symbols, letterheads, and conventions of address. Examples for corporations and institutions are provided. Methods of assessing the informal communications within an…

In order to examine the relationship of audiovisual factors and reading ability to children's television viewing strategies, the eye movements of 30 boys, aged 8 to 10 years, were recorded while they watched a televised display in which audiovisual factors varied systematically. Selected segments of "The Electric Company" were used to…

Learning activities that are associated with programed materials can be applied to learning from ordinary text; in fact, there is no essential difference between programed and ordinary text. Active response so important to programed learning can be controlled in textual materials by carefully defined adjunct aids such as word lists, underlining,…

The experiment described in this report investigates the effects of various cognitive cues in questions asked regarding the relationship of elements in pictorial depth perception. The subjects of this study are 40 third grade Black and Puerto Rican children. They are confronted with four pictures from the Hudson Depth Perception Tests and asked to…

Two experiments examine the relationships among metamemory knowledge, the use of associative memory strategies such as elaboration, and cued-recall memory. Results show that metamemory development predicted most of the grade difference in cued recall, suggesting that metamemory development may explain improvements in retrieval strategies as well.…

This book describes a set of instructional methods called student-directed learning strategies, which combine effective instructional strategies to promote student learning in inclusive environments with a means to promote and enhance active student involvement in learning. The first chapter identifies student-directed learning strategies and…

Multidimensional knowledge structures, described from a constructivist perspective and aligned with the "Mind as Rhizome" metaphor, provide support for constructivist learning strategies. This qualitative study was conducted to seek empirical support for a description of multidimensional knowledge structures, focusing on the…

Developmental changes in the interaction between word order and structural cues were investigated. Hebrew-speaking children between 4 and 10 years old interpreted noun-verb-noun utterances. Both word order and structural cues affected interpretation by all subjects, though the role of structural cues increased with age. (Author/DB)