INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GRAPHIC ORGANIZER INSTRUCTION ON THE COMPREHENSION AND RECALL OF SCIENCE CONTENT BY STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

Abstract

This study examined the effect of graphic organizers on learning‐disabled students’ acquisition and recall of science content. Twenty‐eight fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students with identified learning disabilities from three special education resource classrooms were taught content on fossil fuels. Students were randomly assigned to either a graphic organizer condition (GO) or a no‐graphic organizer condition (NoGO) and taught identical content from the basal science text for a 4‐day period. Three measures were administered the day after treatment completion to assess the effects of graphic organizers on immediate recall and comprehension: (1) oral‐free retell, (2) production tasks, and (3) choice‐response tasks. Two weeks later, students were given production and choice‐response tasks only. Results of multivariate analyses of variance indicated no statistically significant differences between the mean performance of students in the GO and NoGO conditions on either the immediate posttests, F (4, 20) ‐.75, p .05, or delayed posttests, F (2,24) – .79, p .05. Implications for graphic organizer instruction are discussed.