The extent to which advance organizer instruction about social behavior could affect preschool children's social problem-solving abilities was investigated. The study followed a pretest, training, posttest, and delayed posttest format and included periods of observation of children's spontaneous social behaviors before, immediately following, and…

This study investigated the effect on learning of the interspersing of questions with sections of written discourse. A 5,200-word passage was divided into seven sections, from each of which several completion questions were derived. A pair of questions was inserted before, after, or both before and after the section. These questions also formed an…

The usefulness of intact (topic outline format) and embedded (positioned within text) headings as processing aids to facilitate recall was examined, using a 2,500-word passage from introductory science textbooks. Prior studies were subject to criticisms which this study attempted to correct, specifically: (1) use of non-optimal dependent measures;…

Index cards and audio tape can make the steps of the SQ3R system of study more concrete. This method can be particularly beneficial to "average" college students, who for whatever reason, have difficulty sustaining concentration while reading. The SQ3R method is suitable because of its simplicity, diversity of application, adaptability…

Three studies examined the nature of individual differences and the role of advance information in reading comprehension. The subjects, 116 college students, read short passages--in some cases preceded by a given type of advance organizer--recalled the information therein, and finally sorted ideas from the passage into groups of similar ideas.…

A study tested the effects of using a graphic advance organizer before, during, and after reading on the comprehension of written text. Subjects were 197 sixth-grade students who were assigned to a graphic advance organizer group or a reading-only control group and who were also designated as below-level, at-level, and above-level readers. The…

Of 21 studies on the effect that question placement had on reading comprehension, ten favored and eleven opposed the use of prequestions. A review of these studies suggests that the issue is not whether prequestions or postquestions produce greater gains in reading comprehension. What remains to be examined is the change in reading comprehension…

This study was performed in order to test the author's notion that advance organizers operate because (1) they provide stable anchorage for concepts to be learned and (2) in order to operate they must be relatable by the student to the new material. To test this hypothesis the author constructed materials for each of ten treatments as defined by…

The major purposes of this study were to determine the effect of a specific cognitive organizer, the Structured Overview (SO), on reading comprehension and to assess the effect of accompanying the overview with a set of directions for its use. One hundred twenty-four undergraduate members of a developmental reading course were randomly assigned to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interrelationship between passage organization and the presence or absence of advance organizers. Two sets of stimulus materials were used. One set consisted of six paragraphs, each of which described the important events in the administration of one obscure American president. The second set of…

The effectiveness of an advanced organizer based on examples is compared with that of one based on counter examples. The counter examples strategy was found to be more effective for the unit on finite groups. (SD)

Providing specific instructions on reading material to be retained or to be forgotten induced college students to study all the material at a slower pace. A second experiment indicated that increased reading time was necessary for retention of the emphasized sentences. (Author/GDC)

Study goals may be less effective when the sequence of the list of goals does not match the sequence of goal-relevant information in a reading passage. In a study using undergraduates, learning of goal-relevant information was lower when the study goals and text sequences did not match. (Author/GDC)

Taking notes on a teacher-prepared listening guide helped high school students improve on their performance on essay tests. (MKM)

The author proposes that computer programs which are designed to make algorithmic structures accessible and comprehensible be employed as advance organizers in mathematics instruction. These programs would bring clarity and structural integration to mathematical, instructional, and cognitive structures important to the mastery of mathematical…