A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of using advance organizers in instruction at the graduate level. Participants were 218 graduate students in research methodology courses. Fifty-four students were enrolled in sections in which advance and post organizers were used; 164 were enrolled in sections in which this type of instruction did not take place. Conceptual knowledge, involving students' command of research concepts, methodologies, and applications, was measured individually in both sets of classes through midterm and final examinations. Findings show that students in the advance organizer sections of the course obtained higher levels of overall achievement than did their counterparts. The effect size pertaining to this difference was 0.54, which is considered moderate. The implications of these findings are discussed, as are recommendations for incorporating advance and post organizers in research methodology courses. (Contains 1 figure and 44 references.) (SLD)