Training students to process text with adjunct aids

Abstract

Hypotheses about how readers learn from text augmented by objectives or by adjunct postquestions were operationalized by training students to use specific processes while reading. Achievement on a one-passage and on a four-passage curriculum was analyzed using regression analyses to identify treatment effects and aptitude-treatment interactions. Training students to use theoretically appropriate processes associated with objectives or adjunct postquestions generally reduced aptitude-treatment interaction effects, but it did not yield the expected increments in learning compared to placebo groups. Discussion centers on a pointer effect prompted by objectives and postquestions that relates to aptitude. The methodological difficulties and theoretical advantages of operationalizing students' cognitive responses to instructional stimuli by training are also described.