Prose Learning Research Articles

Pictorial organization in prose learning

Ninety undergraduates of high and low prior knowledge of geology read a difficult prose passage concerning the formation of a meander. Two groups of learners were forced to process a map-like organizer either before or after they read the passage, while a control group was provided no pictorial support. The results showed that subjects with little prior knowledge who were provided with the organizer prior to reading recalled at a level similar to that of subjects with a good deal of background knowledge. The findings were interpreted as support for the use of map-like organizers in the primary position to aid comprehension.

Verbal and Nonverbal Adjunct Aids to Concrete and Abstract Prose Learning

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the relative efficiency of verbal (questions) and visual (directions to sketch) adjunct aids for concrete and abstract prose learning. Results for the concrete passage did not confirm earlier work by the authors demonstrat ing equivalency for two types of aids. For the abstract passage, verbal adjunct aids worked best and visual aids were somewhat disruptive. Implications are discussed. SNOWMAN AND CUNNINGHAM (8) recently compared verbal and visual adjunct aids and found that with a fairly concrete passage they operated equivalently. In that study the verbal adjunct aids were multiple choice questions interspersed in the text in a manner similar to that found in most adjunct aid studies (7). Visual adjunct aids were developed by interspersing directions to sketch pictures, the directions being derived from the item stem of the corresponding multiple-choice question. For instance, the following two adjunct aids were used in the Snowman and Cunningham (8) study: Verbal With what do the Gruanda pay their taxes? a. animal skins b. wheat and beets c. colored beads d. colored stone disks Visual Sketch a picture depicting with what the Gruanda pay their taxes. The standard finding in most questioning studies was replicated for verbal questions and extended to visual adjunct aids. Thus, the insertion of questions or direc tions to sketch resulted in increased retention of material directly covered by those adjunct aids (practiced retention) as compared to a control group. In addition, when these adjunct aids were inserted just after the por tion of the text to which they referred, retention of material not directly covered by these aids (nonpracticed retention) was improved as compared to when these aids appeared before the relevant text passage. 8 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.111 on Tue, 02 Aug 2016 04:11:26 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CUNNINGHAM, SNOWMAN, MILLER, AND PERRY 9 In discussing their results, Snowman and Cunning ham (8) speculated that different results might have oc curred if the instructional passage had not been con crete. The present study is designed to examine this possibility. The earlier study was repeated to test the reliability of its findings and, in addition, a second ex periment was conducted concurrently in which an abstract version derived from the concrete passage was employed. Since the abstract version differed in content from the concrete passage, a new criterion test was con structed for the abstract passage, necessitating treating the research as two concurrent experiments rather than as a single experiment. The hypotheses to be tested for the concrete passage are identical to those proposed by Snowman and Cunningham (8). Our predictions concerning the abstract passage were derived from the theoretical posi tion of Paivio (6), who argues that imagery facilitates the recall of concrete content but not abstract content. He has found that verbal mediators are more facilitative with abstract material. It was, therefore, expected that with a more abstract passage, verbal adjunct aids would prove more effective than visual ones; that is, the usual question position effect with practiced and nonpracticed retention would be observed only with verbal questions. Further, it was felt that visual adjunct aids would be disruptive as compared to controls reading without ad junct aids.

Effects of mental imagery and oral and print stimuli on prose learning of intermediate grade children

Two studies investigated the effects on prose learning of oral vs, written presentations of text and the use of mental imagery. Sixth graders (Study 1) and fourth graders (Study 2) listened to or read a text. Some students were asked to imagine pictures of the material. Oral presentations produced better results than written-only forms. Fourth graders benefited more from mental imagery than did sixth graders.

A Prose Learning Strategy Training Program Based on Network and Depth-of-Processing Models

Relatively simple changes in cognitive activities during prose learning can have a substantial effect on how much and what kind of information is acquired, yet many students use relatively ineffective learning strategies. This paper describes a learning strategy training program which is based on network models of long-term memory structure and depth-of-processing theory. Evidence is presented which supports the effectiveness of the learning strategy training program in enhancing prose learning among college students.

Influence of spatial organization in prose learning.

Influence of spatial organization in prose learning.

Influence of spatial organization in prose learning.

Influence of spatial organization in prose learning.

A critique of schema-based theories of human story memory

The concept of a ‘schema’ as a theoretical construct has regained prominence among memory researchers, particularly those studying prose learning. A schema is a cluster of knowledge that describes the typical properties of the concept it represents. Recent theories built upon the notion of schemata have explained numerous results in human comprehension, recall, and summarization of prose. While schema theory provides a plausible and descriptive framework for understanding human knowledge processing, it is ill-constrained and provides few detailed process assumptions. This lack of constraint allows sufficient flexibility to accommodate post hoc many empirical results. However, because of this flexibility, the theory is of limited predictive value and is not testable as a scientific theory in its current form. We detail the strengths and weaknesses of schema theory, affirm its promise as a theory of human memory, and suggest areas for future theoretical development.

Play, pictures, and repetition: Mediators in aural prose learning

This study assessed the effects of imposed (picture) and induced (play) imagery on the aural language comprehension of kindergarten children. Eighty children were randomly assigned to two treatment and two control conditions. A one-way analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in recall. It was concluded that further study of mediating conditions was needed across a wide range of skills, abilities, and individual differences.

An Examination of three Prose Learning Strategies on Reading Comprehension

Summary The present study was designed to meet recent criticisms of prose learning research methodology. The experiment dealt, respectively, with objectives, questions in text, and advance organizers. Reading comprehension was assessed as a covariate in examining criterion test performance (N = 63 male and female university undergraduates). The findings provide evidence for the strong impact of reading comprehension on criterion test performance. In the objectives phase, the findings provide support (consistent with prior research) for the efficacy of objectives in improving intentional learning, although apparently at the expense of incidental learning. The nonsignificant findings for the questions experiment are consistent with prior research. The results from the advanced organizer experiment are also consistent (nonsignificant results) with the one previous study that employed true control groups and time controls.

Multivariate relationships between measures of learning style and memory

Three self-report instruments assessing “learning style” were administered to 106 undergraduate students: the Inventory of Learning Processes, the Study Behavior Questionnaire, and the Learning Style Inventory. Performance measures on word list and prose learning tasks were also obtained using both immediate and delayed retention tests. Canonical correlation analysis of the pairs of learning style instruments indicated that there was a small to moderate amount of overlapped variance. Inspection of the canonical variates revealed that what overlap existed was generally due to a common factor related to the depth of processing conception of memory. No significant canonical correlations were obtained between any of the learning style instruments and word list retention measures. However, the Inventory of Learning Processes and the Learning Style Inventory each obtained one significant canonical correlation with the set of prose retention measures. There was little overlap between sets of retention measures derived separately from prose and word list tasks. The findings have implications concerning (a) the validity and equivalency of available self-report instruments assessing learning style, (b) the role of the learning task in studying individual differences in learning and memory processes, and (c) the assessment of “depth of processing” at the level of individual differences.

Effects of Questions and Test-Like Events on Achievement and On-Task Behavior in a Classroom Concept Learning Presentation

Fifty-one third grade subjects were randomly assigned to two groups. Both groups were exposed to a standard presentation on the concept of first class lever and were asked the same questions in both treatments. Experimental subjects were all required to make overt responses to every question, while questions to control subjects were addressed to one individual at a time. Those in the experimental group exhibited significantly fewer off- task behaviors than control subjects, and classified new examples of levers more accurately. Apparently, oral questions are nominal stimuli when individually addressed, and Rothkopf’s theory extends from prose learning to concept learning tasks in classroom settings.

Effect of various sensory inputs on prose learning.

A pretest-posttest design was used to determine the effects of auditory input, visual input, auditory-visual input, and no input on prose learning. The principal result of a multivariate analysis of covariance combained with a multiple-comparison test was a significant difference in favor of auditory input. This difference seemed to be confined to definition items which were the substance of the input as opposed to application items which were not involved explicitly in the input. A difference between the present study and earlier ones was that a shorter exposure of stimuli was employed in the present study, which may have led to results favoring auditory input in contrast to earlier findings favoring visual input.

The Effects of Imaginal and Verbal Strategies on Prose Comprehension by Adults

Adult subjects were given concrete and abstract textbook passages to study by using either an imaginai or verbal strategy. Two days later, they were given a multiple-choice test and a production test of comprehension. The verbal strategy produced better comprehension than the imaginai strategy; concrete passages were comprehended better than abstract passages, but only according to the production test; and strategy and concreteness did not interact. Differences between these results and results obtained in imagery research on word lists are discussed, and caution is advised before generalizing the word research to meaningful prose learning by adults

Imagery instructions and young children's prose learning: No evidence of “support”

One hundred and sixty kindergarten and first-grade children listened to a narrative passage under one of five experimental conditions. Contrary to research with older children, prelearning imagery instructions did not facilitate subsequent recall of story information. Neither did concrete support in the form of intermittently provided pictures produce any recall gains for unpictured story information, even though such support had a marked positive effect on recall of pictured information. The pattern of several children's prose-learning studies, including the present one, is consistent with the hypothesis that the ability to apply a self-generated imagery strategy is developmentally based. Recent findings in the associative-learning literature lend additional support to this interpretation.

The use of schemata in the acquisition and transfer of knowledge

A learning model based on “memory schemata” is presented. The model assumes that knowledge substructures in memory are shared by multiple representations of information from diverse contexts. These substructures, or schemata, are collections of concepts and associations that occur together repeatedly and act as unitary, higher-order concepts. When knowledge is represented in terms of a schema, associations from the schema to additional concepts specify the detailed information for that context. This organization of knowledge entails both costs and benefits for the acquisition and retention of new information that utilizes a schema. The use of a familiar encoding structure facilitates memory access at storage and retrieval time. Multiple uses of the shared structure produce interference among concepts from the various contexts. The predictions of the model were tested in two transfer experiments in prose learning. Experiment l demonstrated the simultaneous effects of both facilitation and interference in the learning of diverse information conforming to a single schema. Recall of information from the schema was a non-monotonic function of schema strength. In Experiment 2 facilitation was preserved while interference was eliminated by increasing the discriminability among competing contexts. Results from both experiments confirmed the predictions of the model.

Pictures, imagery, and retarded children's prose learning.

Pictures, imagery, and retarded children's prose learning.

Pictures, imagery, and retarded children's prose learning.

Pictures, imagery, and retarded children's prose learning.

Evidence for a selective storage mechanism in prose learning.

Evidence for a selective storage mechanism in prose learning.

Evidence for a selective storage mechanism in prose learning.

Evidence for a selective storage mechanism in prose learning.

Pictures and Young children's Prose Learning: A Supplementary Report

Facilitative effects of illustration activity on prose learning have been previously established for young (first grade) children in a listening task. The present study tested for illustration effects with passages of varying complexity and length. Positive effects were found for long and short passages (100 vs. 50 words) that were either simple (one locational setting) or complex (two settings). The pattern of results for cued and free recall suggested that illustration facilitates individual sentence comprehension more than passage integration for these children. Analysis of subject-constructed illustrations showed a clear relationship between illustration content and passage recall.