The present study examined the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and comprehension on a multiple text assessment from the ACT test for college preparedness in which texts are available during question answering. Specifically, it was of interest whether differences in relations would be seen across different question types. Only…

Many studies have demonstrated that illustrating expository science texts with images that are interesting, but irrelevant for understanding the causal relations underlying scientific phenomena, can cause seduction effects, which can reduce understanding from text. The term "seduction effects" refers to the influence that images are…

Many studies have demonstrated that testing students on to-be-learned materials can be an effective learning activity. However, past studies have also shown that some practice test formats are more effective than others. Open-ended recall or short answer practice tests may be effective because the questions prompt deeper processing as students…

The present experiment explored the independent effects of refutations and summaries to prevent student misunderstandings when learning from an introductory psychology text on cognitive dissonance. Explicitly presenting and refuting a common misconception about cognitive dissonance did not improve performance on comprehension questions that…

Past research has suggested that there may be benefits in learning from expository science text when students study with the expectation that they will need to teach another student. The present experiments were designed to extend prior work by testing whether an effect would be seen on both immediate tests (similar to those used in most prior…

Past research has suggested that there may be benefits in learning from expository science text when students study with the expectation that they will need to teach another student. The present experiments were designed to extend prior work by testing if an effect would be seen on both immediate tests (similar to those used in most prior studies)…

Students often struggle with developing understanding from expository science texts. This study explored whether training students to engage in a POE (Predict-Observe-Explain) study strategy might be beneficial when learning from texts that introduce theories by describing experiments and empirical results, a common style in social science…

Teachers may wish to use open-ended learning activities and tests, but they are burdensome to assess compared to forced-choice instruments. At the same time, forced-choice assessments suffer from issues of guessing (when used as tests) and may not encourage valuable behaviors of construction and generation of understanding (when used as learning…

Engaging in explanation while studying expository science texts can improve comprehension. The present study varied the timing of explanation activities and restudy opportunities before taking final comprehension tests on a set of 6 topics studied as part of a course in Introduction to Psychology. When students had the opportunity to restudy in…

The Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) learning cycle improves understanding of the connection between empirical results and theoretical concepts when students engage in hands-on experimentation. This study explored whether training students to use a POE strategy when learning from social science texts that describe theories and experimental results…

Past work has shown that generating explanations can improve both comprehension and metacomprehension outcomes. Although practice testing may sometimes improve comprehension, it is unclear if it affects metacomprehension (the ability to monitor one's understanding). The current study tested whether online homework activities involving practice…

A set of four experiments assessed the effects of establishing a comprehension-test expectancy (in contrast to a memory-test expectancy) on relative metacomprehension accuracy. Typically readers show poor relative metacomprehension accuracy while learning from text (i.e., they are unable to discriminate topics they have understood well from topics…

A set of four experiments assessed the effects of establishing a comprehension-test expectancy (in contrast to a memory-test expectancy) on relative metacomprehension accuracy. Typically readers show poor relative metacomprehension accuracy while learning from text (i.e., they are unable to discriminate topics they have understood well from topics…

Students in a gateway college science course were assigned to two instructional conditions: explanation-only or augmented instruction. In the explanation-only condition, students wrote explanations for six excerpts from their textbook. The augmented-instruction condition wrote explanations on only four of the excerpts, with the other two serving…

The tendency to conform to prior examples can be viewed as a form of mental fixation that has negative consequences and limits the scope and quality of designs. Two experiments using the Smith, S. M., Ward, T. B., & Schumacher, J. S. [(1993) "Memory & Cognition," 21, 837-845] toy invention task were conducted to determine whether…