Investigating the comprehension, recall, and transfer of factual information in social studies texts by fifth-grade students with variation in the presence or absence of graphic organizers and explicitness or implicitness of instruction

Cynthia Carlson Griffin, Purdue University

Abstract

Although the graphic organizer (GO) has been labeled a "spatial learning strategy" (Barron & Schwartz, 1984), in actuality it has never been experimentally investigated as a strategy per se. In addition, although a few studies have attempted to examine the presence or absence of the partially-teacher constructed graphic organizer (e.g., Boothby & Alvermann, 1984), none have examined the absence or presence of the student-constructed GO. The following investigation was conducted to examine: (1) the degree to which normally-achieving fifth-grade subjects required teacher intervention for constructing their own graphic organizers, and (2) the extent to which the presence or absence of the visual-spatial, graphic representation of text (i.e., the graphic organizer) facilitated normally-achieving fifth-grade subjects' comprehension and recall of expository text. Results of the study can be summarized in the following three points: (a) contrary to the stated research hypotheses, subjects in the Explicit Graphic Organizer condition, in general, performed at a lower level on measures of comprehension and recall than subjects in the other four conditions; (b) subjects in the Implicit No Graphic Organizer condition, the condition void of a graphic organizer or of explicit teacher directed instruction, performed at a higher level on most of the dependent measures; and finally, (c) the graphic organizer appeared most facilitative when subjects were required to read and recall expository passages of novel content.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Kameenui, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Literacy|Reading instruction

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