Mnemonic Facilitation of Text-Embedded Science Facts

Abstract

Eighth-grade students read passages that described three dichotomized attributes of eight North American minerals. One-third of the students were given instruction in the use of mnemonic techniques, combined with experimenter-provided mnemonic illustrations of the passage content; another third were told about the value of organizing and summarizing to-be-remembered factual prose material, combined with experimenter-provided “fact map” summaries; and a final third were given motivational instructions and told to apply their normal method(s) of study while reading the passages. Mnemonic instruction generally produced greater memory for the minerals’ attributes in comparison to the other two conditions. This was true whether the passage was organized by mineral name (Experiment 1) or by attribute (Experiment 2) both on an immediate identification test and on identification and recall tests administered 3 days later. Implications of the findings are discussed with specific regard to remembering scientific taxonomies and their associated facts.