THE INFLUENCE OF INSTRUCTIONS, OUTLINES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS ON THE COMPREHENSION AND RECALL OF SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

This study compared the effects of three different instructional aids on the acquisition of information from a scientific passage. Different groups of subjects were given: (a) no aids (control group), (b) written instructions providing an overview of the passage, (c) the same instructions plus the task of forming a study outline from the instructions, or (d) an illustration depicting important elements of the passage. After studying the passage, 104 subjects completed an applied problem and a recognition task, either immediately or 24 h after studying the passage. The principal finding was that instructions, outline, and illustration led to a significantly higher performance. For questions requiring application of information in the passage, the outline condition led to the highest performance, whereas for the recognition task, the illustration condition was associated with the highest performance. The implications these data may have for education are discussed. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.