The Effects of Advance and Post Organization on the Learning and Retention of Prose Material PDF Download

Author: Leon C. Young
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Concept learning
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Purpose of the Study The main purpose of this study was to determine the influence of the use of written advance organization, post organization or both advance/post organization on learners as compared to the use of non organization for the learning and retention of verbal, academic material. An additional interest was to determine the effect of the type of student using the various organizers at two different times of recall; immediate and retention three weeks following the initial learning experience. Procedure Eighty (80) subjects from each of three areas of study at Oregon State University participated in a learning experiment which utilized four levels of a written conceptual organizer. The four levels of organizer (i.e., advance, post, advance/post, and non organizer) established the four treatment groups used for each type of student. Students (116 female, 124 male) from teacher education, industrial education, and science majors in chemistry were presented appropriate verbal organizers prior to and/or following the learning of meaningful verbal material to determine whether learning and retention were enhanced. The post and non organizer groups received a non organizing, historical passage to study for eight minutes prior to reading a longer learning passage on the metallurgical properties of carbon steel. The advance and advance/post organizer groups received a concept building, background passage prior to reading the same learning passage. Following a twenty minute period allowed for reading the learning passage, the advance and non organizer groups received the historical, non organizing passage to study for an eight minute period. The post and advance/post organizer groups received the concept building, background passage for the same period of time. All subjects took the same criterion test consisting of thirtytwo (32) multiple choice questions immediately following the last stage of the experiment. No time limit was imposed and the subjects completed the test at their own speed. All subjects repeated the same test three weeks following the learning exercise for a measure of retention. The learner's score on the criterion test was determined by the number of correct responses. The materials used in the study were developed by and used with the permission of Dr. David P. Ausubel. The collected data were analyzed using the F statistic to determine if differences existed among the mean scores. Both the three-way analysis of variance and a multiple comparisons analysis were conducted. The Least Significant Difference test was utilized when comparisons showing significant differences contained more than two means. Conclusions The following conclusions were supported as a result of the study and are based upon the findings: 1. A written advance organizer effectively facilitated the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material. 2. Neither post nor advance/post organization significantly facilitated the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material for the sample as a whole. 3. Both advance and advance /post organization facilitated learning and retention significantly more than did non organization for industrial education subjects only. 4. The performance of different types of students using the same types of organizers as an aid to facilitate learning differed significantly. 5. The performance level of the different types of students did not persist for all four types of organizer.