Can an Advance Organizer Technique Compensate for Poor Reading Conditions?

Advance organizers: Facilitators of recall

“…In addition, amount of reading time available is not a primary issue in the theory supporting the use of advance organizers. As a result, the impact of Stallings and Derry's (1986) first experiment is minor in terms of suggesting that advance organizers do not facilitate recall. 3Subjects in the listed experiments were university undergraduates unless otherwise noted.…”

“…Stallings and Derry (1986) found no beneficial effects associated with advance organizers when subjects 3 were restricted in terms of access to the learning material. Stallings and Derry (1986) performed two experiments. Both experiments employed two different types of texts, one literary (a passage from mythology) and one technical (a warehouse job description).…”

“…That is, given that advance organizers have proven facilitative in the past, how extreme can learning conditions be before the facilitative effects are lost? Apparently, real world distractions as used by Stallings and Derry (1986) cross that boundary. Petersen et al (1980) considered reading comprehension, as measured by the comprehension portion of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, as an important variable and used it as a covariate in their study.…”

“…3Subjects in the listed experiments were university undergraduates unless otherwise noted. Stallings and Derry's (1986) second experiment considered the effects of distractions, in association with advance organizers, in the form of poorly reproduced reading materials (single-spaced text copied on an old, overworked photocopier in the university library) vs. good quality copies (double-spaced text copied on a newer, less frequently used photocopier). Subjects had access to either an advance organizer or placebo introduction which were typed double-spaced and were high quality copies.…”

“…Advance organizers ranged from 50 words (Petersen et aL, 1980) to as long as 230 words (Corkill et al 1988a). Subjects ranging in age from junior high (e.g., Peleg and Moore, 1982) and high school (Adejumo and Ehindero, 1980;Tudor, 1986) to college (e.g., Stallings and Derry, 1986;Tyler et al, 1983) were tested. Recall was assessed by a wide range of measures: free recall (e.g., Corkill et al 1988a;Dinnel and Glover, 1985;Mayer and Bromage, 1980;Rickards, 1975Rickards, -1976, cued recall (e.g., Rickards and McCormick, 1977;Stallings and Derry, 1986), cloze procedures (Tudor, 1986), and multiple choice (e.g., Adejumo and Ehindero, 1980;Gillies, 1984;Stallings and Derry, 1986).…”