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Background. In his dissertation, Jan Vermunt (1992) proposed four different learning styles: a meaning directed, a reproduction directed, an application directed and an undirected style.Aims. In a cross‐sectional and longitudinal design the development of these learning styles during students' stay at the university is studied, as well as the relation of these styles with academic success. A systematic relation between year of study and learning style is expected, namely that the application and meaning directed learning style scores would be higher in the later years and the undirected and reproduction learning style scores would be the highest in the early years.Results. In the cross‐sectional study it was not found that the application and meaning directed learning style scores were higher in the later years, nor that the undirected and reproduction learning style scores were the highest in the early years. In the longitudinal study the means of the meaning directed and application directed learning style scores indeed increased over the years, while the means of the reproduction and undirected learning style scores decreased. For the score on the meaning directed learning style, this change was significant, though a marginal effect size was found.Conclusion. It might not be concluded there is a systematic relation between year of study and learning style. No evidence is found for the implicit hierarchy that the meaning directed and application directed learning are better than the reproduction learning style. The undirected learning style, however, correlates negatively with academic success.

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The research literature on the effects of factual and higher order adjunct questions is reviewed. The influence of 13 design variables on the direction and size of adjunct-questions effects was investigated. Adjunct questions of all cognitive levels have a strong facultative effect on repeated test questions and a weaker effect on test questions related to the adjunct questions. Unrelated test questions are affected negatively by factual prequestions and by factual postquestions when study time is controlled. Factual postquestions have a positive effect on unrelated questions only when no time restrictions are imposed. Effect sizes are found to be related to text length, density of adjunct questions, adjunctquestion format, test-question format, and the level of performance in the control group; they are unrelated to subjects' age, the interval between reading task and test, whether or not subjects are allowed to consult the text while answering the adjunct questions, and the average distance between adjunct questions and relevant text information. When compared to factual adjunct questions, higher order adjunct questions lead to improved performance on repeated, related, and unrelated higher order test questions, and possibly also on unrelated factual test questions. This indicates that higher order adjunct questions may have a more general facilitative effect than factual adjunct questions. The analysis of a recent adjunct-questions study illustrates the role that review results can play in (reinterpreting experimental findings. This study is based on a portion of the author's doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Amsterdam.The author gratefully acknowledges the comments of Harry Vorst, and the assistance of Paul Kirschner in collecting the data. 212 at MOUNT ALLISON UNIV on July 2, 2015 http://rer.aera.net Downloaded from at MOUNT ALLISON UNIV on July 2, 2015 http://rer.aera.net Downloaded from CHRISTIAAN HAMAKERcan reasonably be expected to influence positively the learning of information needed to answer the test questions. Five kinds of relationships satisfying this definition have been found in the research literature. They are as follows:1. The adjunct questions concern a restricted category of text information (e.g., proper names) and the test contains new questions about items from the same category of information (e.g., Rothkopf & Bisbicos, 1967).2. The test question covers information not directly needed to answer the adjunct questions, but supposedly reviewed while searching for an answer to a postquestion. This may be the case in adjunct inference questions (Frase, 1969(Frase, , 1970(Frase, , 1971 or when the test question is drawn from the same sentence as an adjunct question (McGaw & Grotelueschen, 1972).3. The text contains definitions of concepts or statements of general principles, and adjunct questions require the subjects to identify examples of these concepts, whereas the new test questions require the identification of new examples of the ...