Preinstructional Strategies: The Role of Pretests, Behavioral Objectives, Overviews and Advance Organizers

206

Forty-four published research studies involving advance organizers were reviewed. Twenty-seven studies included an advance organizer vs. a control group (standard advance organizer study) and 17 studies included an advance organizer vs. a post organizer group (modified advance organizer study). Results of the studies were compared to the predictions of several theories. In addition, four specific predictions of assimilation theory were evaluated: that advance organizers should have a stronger effect for poorly organized text than for well organized text, that advance organizers should have a stronger positive effect for learners lacking prerequisite knowledge, that advance organizers should have a stronger effect for learners lacking prerequisite abilities, and that advance organizers should have an especially strong effect on measures of transfer rather than retention.

Section: Scope Of This Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty years of research on advance organizers: Assimilation theory is still the best predictor of results

Mayer

1979

206

“…The empirical effects of these instructional stimuli on learning have been inconsistent (see Andre, 1979;Hartley and Davies, 1976;Rickards and Denner, 1978). As Winne (1982) argued in the case of adjunct questions, these results may reflect different ways that learners cognitively responded to the instructional stimuli rather than weaknesses in their effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Training students to process text with adjunct aids

Winne

1983

Hypotheses about how readers learn from text augmented by objectives or by adjunct postquestions were operationalized by training students to use specific processes while reading. Achievement on a one-passage and on a four-passage curriculum was analyzed using regression analyses to identify treatment effects and aptitude-treatment interactions. Training students to use theoretically appropriate processes associated with objectives or adjunct postquestions generally reduced aptitude-treatment interaction effects, but it did not yield the expected increments in learning compared to placebo groups. Discussion centers on a pointer effect prompted by objectives and postquestions that relates to aptitude. The methodological difficulties and theoretical advantages of operationalizing students' cognitive responses to instructional stimuli by training are also described.

“…Brody and Legenza (1980) suggested that pictures may serve a review function similar to the general review function served by questions that are placed after reading passages (Rickards, 1979). Even though advance organizers are usually operationalized in verbal symbols, Hartley and Davies (1976) reported that pictures could also serve this function. Although these and similar studies were not always primarily concerned with comparing instructional techniques that are seemingly different but functionally equivalent, their importance lies in the fact that they attempted to place picture functions in a broader instructional context by determining if pictures can serve functions that are similar to those served by nonpictures.…”

Section: Integrating Pictorial and Nonpictorial Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of instructional utility: A function-based approach to pictorial research

Brody

1984

In spite of considerable research on various aspects of pictures and their instructional uses, a clear conception of the instructional potential of pictures is missing. As a result, practitioners who deal directly with the instructional process are limited in their ability to use pictures most effectively and efficiently. The approach to picture research described here attempts to make research more relevant by suggesting the need to pay greater attention to the instructional role or function served by pictures. Potential functions must be described in terms of their contribution to instructional processes and procedures. Functions should also be applicable to a wide variety of objectives, strategies, and procedures. The relevance of this approach to both basic and applied pictorial research is also discussed.