Reading for a Multiple-Choice Test: Headings as Schema Activators

Abstract

This experiment investigated the effect of headings on memory as a function of the reader's preexisting knowledge about the passage topic. Fifty-five of the 116 college student subjects read a 1,760-word passage on human sexuality with headings present, and the other 61 subjects read the passage with the headings removed. An analysis of the scores on the multiple-choice retention test revealed that the only significant facilitative effect of the headings was in the answering of main-idea retention test questions by subjects with high preexisting knowledge about the topic, as assessed by a pretest, p<.05. Thus, the results suggest that headings facilitate recognition memory by activating schemas and that such an organizational effect of headings is more likely to benefit main-idea information than detail information.Several recent studies have reported facilitative effects of headings on various types of recall performance (e.g.,

Generating Topic Headings During Reading of Screen-Based Text Facilitates Learning of Structural Knowledge and Impairs Learning of Lower-Level Knowledge

“…Typically, headings inserted in text by the author are reading signals, an approach that is usually not considered to be a generative strategy (Wilhite, 1988) though McKeague and Di Vesta (1996) have described headings as an organization aid that highlights the potential structure of a text. Two leading explanations of author-provided headings as signals for text processing are the selection hypothesis and the implementation hypothesis.…”

Headings as memory facilitators: The importance of prior knowledge.

“…The results of this experiment and that of Wilhite (1988) showed the facilitative effect of the headings to be specific to the main-idea information in the passage segments. Of possible importance to this finding is the relation between the headings and the content of the passage segments that they precede.…”

An Empirical Method of Assessing Topic Familiarity in Reading Comprehension Research

“…In essence, the subjects' memory for content-specific information may be primed by the pre-test, thus confounding the patterns observed on the experimental inventories. Wilhite (1989), summarizing some of his previous work (Wilhite, 1988), observed the possible confounding influences of a familiarity pre-test in his studies of the effects of headings in text and noted that "for the subjects with high levels of pre-existing knowledge, the pretest questions contributed to the facilitative effect of the headings" (p. 115).…”