72 college Ss read a 2000-word biographical prose passage. A 2 X 3X2 factorial analysis assessed the effects of position of factual questions within the text, length of passage, and presence of knowledge of results. Posttest analysis focused upon (a) questions which had occurred during reading (retention questions), and (b) questions related to the section of the prose passage not tested by the retention questions (incidental questions). All 3 factors were significant for retention questions; only the position of questions was significant for incidental questions. A moderate length passage was optimal for retention scores while scores on incidental questions tended to improve with longer passages. When questions occurred after passages both retention and incidental scores were high. Elicitation of "mathemagenic" behavior provided the most concise interpretation of the data.
Forty-eight sentences, which associated eight attributes with six chessmen, were clustered in paragraphs by chessman, by attribute, or by rote group (randomized). One-half of 42 high school graduates were told the conceptual structure of the passage before reading. Subjects read the passages for three 5-minute periods-in orde'r to learn the information and to evaluate chess play. Free recall was required after each reading. With the organized passages, recall was about 50 per cent higher 'than with the rote group, but the rote group showed as much clustering (78 per cent) , as one of the organized passages. Conceptual preinformation improved performance as trials increased but did snot influence recall clustering. Primacy effects were obtained for the organized passages. Application test scores, although in the same direction as recall scores. did not differ svificantly. Application scores correlated only with recall of the attributes concerning how the chessmen move. References and tasles are included.. (MD) Abstract Forty-eight sentences, which associated 8 attributes with 6 chessmen, were clustered in paragraphs by chessman, by attribute, or randomized (rote group). One-half of 42 high school graduates were told the conceptual structure of the passage before reading.Ss read the passages for three 5 min.periods in order to learn the information and t, evaluate chess play. Free recall was required after each reading.With organized passages, recall was about 50% higher than for the rote group, but the rote group showed as much clustering (78%) as one of the organized passages. Conceptual pre-information improved performance as trials increased, but did not influence recall clustering. Primacy effects were obtained for the organized passages. Application test scores, although in the same direction as recall scores, did not differ significantly. Application scores correlated only with recall of the attributes concerning how the chessmen move.
The influence of motivation in Modifying the effect of adjunct questions was explored. Eazh of 270 undergraduates were promised O. 3, Or 10 cents for each correct answer on a test given immediately after reading. .Ouestions were placed either frequently or infrequently in a text, either before or after the relevant material. Controls read the text without adjunct questions. Results indicated that (1) learning was contingent upon how much money the subjects were o.ffered for performing; (2) that the advantage of post-questions over prequestions 'diminished under .high incentive; (3) that prequestions inhibited incidental learning when they were frequent; and (4) that infrequent adjunct quetions resulted in a takeover by the incentive factor. It was concluded that inhibitory effects of questions may operate during the selection of text inpUt and during the further processing of that input from short-term memory. References, notes, and tables are included. (MD)
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