Discusses common beliefs and flaws in classroom research. Distinguishes among three kinds of empirical educational investigations. Suggests research designs which are considered to be sensible, selective, sound, sensitive, and simple. Describes designs using multiple classrooms for instructional-intervention experiments. (KS)

Two experiments compared the effectiveness of two separate mnemonic devices for learning the states and their capitals--one a complex key word system using substitute words for each syllable, the other a simple key word device interacting key words from the state and capital names in an illustration. In the first experiment, 88 fourth and fifth…

The two experiments described investigated the effects of pictures on the recall of prose passages from newspapers by children. Both single pictures expressing the main idea and groups of pictures illustrating each sentence helped fourth graders recall content. (Author/BK)

Investigates the potential of a keyword method extension to determine if it can be effectively combined with other mnemonic strategies that are designed to facilitate coding of numerically ordered information. Twenty references are listed. (MER)

A study combined a simple mnemonic counting system with the keyword method to determine whether the keyword vocabulary methods can be effectively combined with other mnemonic strategies to facilitate coding of numerically ordered information. This system was then taught to 48 eighth-grade students in the context of learning the names and numbers…