Effects of three types of inserted questions on learning from prose

Graeme H. Watts, Richard C. Anderson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

300 high school seniors answered an inserted question after reading each of 5 450-word passages explaining a psychological principle. The question involved identifying an example of the principle or the name of the psychologist associated with the principle. Ss who received questions that required them to apply the principles to new examples performed significantly better on the posttest than all other ss, including ss who received otherwise identical questions that repeated examples described in the text. The group which answered name questions performed worst on the posttest, poorer even than the reading-only control group. It is argued that inserted application questions induced the student to process the text more thoroughly. However, it is not clear whether the facilitative effect is attributable to a "forward" shaping influence or a "backward" review influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)387-394
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Educational Psychology
Volume62
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1971
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • prose learning, inserted questions, high school seniors

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology

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