The goal of this study is to examine the comprehension of global causal and temporal relations between events that are represented in single hypertext documents. In two experiments we examined how reading sequences of hypertext nodes affects the establishment of event relations and how this process can be supported by advanced organizers that…

Most second/foreign language (L2) learners have difficulty understanding listening input because of its implicit and ephemeral nature, and they typically have better reading comprehension than listening comprehension skills. This study examines the effects of using an interactive advance-organizer activity on the DVD video comprehension of L2…

Research has shown that the use of pre-reading activities, such as graphic or advance organizers can positively affect student acquisition of vocabulary and meaning when reading new concepts presented in text. One particularly effective strategy, semantic mapping, can significantly impact students who previously had a lack of prior knowledge on…

This study has reviewed major design approaches for electronic performance support systems and identified two common problems: users' inability to comprehend screen-based material and poorly designed instructional scaffolds. This paper presents a design approach, called the "Matrix-Aided Performance System" ("MAPS"), which enables these problems…

Educable retarded (64) and nonretarded (64) subjects (mean age 15 years) heard two stories. After each story, performance was assessed on recall and comprehension. All Ss were randomly assigned to one of four treatments: (1)knowledge (Ss were told concepts critical to processing each story); (2)purpose statements (Ss were guided in organizing…

Investigates the impact of underlining and adjunct questioning in text recall for fifth grade students. Results suggest that for 10 year-old readers adjunct post questions and underlining may hinder performance. (RAO)

Cognitive load can be defined as the amount of mental effort that performing a specific task imposes on a learner's cognitive system. It can be measured by the number of new concepts embedded in a learning task. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, with their limited English proficiency and minimal entry knowledge of a subject matter,…

To discover if narrative analogies of scientific mechanisms would help readers to comprehend passages describing those mechanisms, four such passages were extracted from an encyclopedia. These original passages were written in expository style and constituted the expository condition. For the narrative condition, simple narrative analogies of…

Investigated the theory that meaningful learning of new material could be facilitated through the use of relevant subsuming concepts (organizers) presented prior to the message. Hypothesized that these advance organizers would be superior to introductory overviews. No overall advance organizer superiority was found. (PD)

The effects of cursory preliminary directions on the use of numerical tables, bar graphs, and line graphs by 288 fourth and sixth graders were investigated. Participants received no directions, written directions only, or written directions with assistance where necessary. The undirected table and bar graph users performed moderately well. Their…

Advance organizers may fail to promote learning even though they are approximately related to the main learning experience and internally meaningful and logical. If they are to optimize the likelihood that new materials will be readily and properly subsumed, they must also be constructed to conform to the cognitive preparedness and scholastic…

Research on the usefulness of metaphors as an aid to teaching statistics shows that students taught with metaphors learned more, defined terms more accurately, made more successful inferences, and made fewer errors. (CH)

A program title and an advance organizer were used in presenting affective television materials to large college-level classes of beginning v advanced chemistry. Results showed that the advance organizer significantly increased student comprehension but had negative affective consequences. Students' perceptions of the material's value and…

Two experiments examined the relative effects of concrete and abstract advance organizers on students' memory for subsequent prose. Results of the experiments are discussed in terms of the memorability, familiarity, and visualizability of concrete and abstract verbal materials. (JD)

A unit on animals was taught to 64 preschool children (44 in an experimental group and 20 in a control group). Children in the experimental group were taught nine major concepts over four levels of abstraction (designated as superordinate, intermediate, subordinate, or particular levels). Each concept was presented by means of an advance organizer…