A prospective study tested the hypothesis that college grade point average would be predicted by time-management practices. Ninety college students completed a time-management questionnaire in 1983; their high school Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores were obtained from college records. Principal-components analysis of the 35-item time-management instrument revealed 3 components. In 1987, 4 years later, each student's cumulative grade point average was obtained from college records. Regression analyses showed that 2 time-management components were significant predictors of cumulative grade point average (R 2 = .21) and accounted for more variance than did SAT scores (increment in R 2 = .05). It is concluded that time-management practices may influence college achievement.

The goal of this study was to link a computational psychological model to instructional practice. Kintsch's (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; Miller & Kintsch, 1980) reading comprehension model was used to identify locations where inferences were called for in a 1000-word expository text. Then each location was repaired to produce a principled revision. In an experiment with undergraduates (N = 170) , free recall of the principled revision was much increased over that of the original version. Also, the author of the original text and 7 subject-matter experts provided measures of the shape of the original text's intended cognitive structure. The author's and experts' cognitive structure shapes correlated above .5 with the shapes provided by U.S. Air Force recruits who read the principled revision but only .1 with recruits who read the original version. Apparently, the principled revision carried out the author's intentions better than had the author's original text. It is concluded that Kintsch's model can be used to improve instructional text.

S Some educators (e.g., Ravitch, 1992) have suggested that students use multiple source documents to study history. Such documents could be primary sources, such as legislative bills or eyewitness accounts; secondary sources, such as editorials; or tertiary sources, such as textbooks. This study examined the processes used when high school students were presented documents about a controversial incident in U.S. history, the Tonkin Gulf Incident and its aftermath. These students were asked to read these either to describe or develop an opinion about the incident or the Senate action on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. We were interested in (a) whether students could develop a rich, mental model of a historical event, (b) what they would do with the document information, (c) how the task influenced their processing of information, (d) how students integrated information across texts, and (e) whether students engaged in corroborating, sourcing, and contextualizing in evaluating historical materials. We found that the mental models created by these students were more internally consistent after reading at least two documents, but did not become more consistent after that. When compared to knowledgeable readers, they failed to make any growth after a first reading. Examining their notes, we found that students tended to take literal notes, regardless of the final task, suggesting that they were using the initial readings to garner the facts about the incident or the resolution. If students were asked for a description, they tended to stay close to the text. If asked for an opinion, however, they tended to ignore the information in the texts they read, even though they may have taken copious notes. Our observations suggest that high school students may not be able to profit from multiple texts, especially those presenting conflicting opinions, without some specific instruction in integrating information from different texts. ALGUNOS EDUCADORES (por ej. Ravitch, 1992) han sugerido que los estudiantes usan documentos de diversas fuentes para estudiar historia. Estos documentos pueden ser fuentes primarias, como por ejemplo declaraciones del Congreso o relatos de testigos presenciales, fuentes secundarias, como por ejemplo editoriales, o fuentes terciarias, como los libros de texto. Este estudio examinó los procesos usados por estudiantes de escuela secundaria al presentárseles documentos acerca de un incidente controvertido de la historia de los Estados Unidos, el incidente del golfo de Tonkin y sus consecuencias. Se solicitó a los estudiantes que leyeran estos documentos para describir o desarrollar una opinión acerca del incidente o de la acción del Senado respecto de la Resolución del golfo de Tonkin. Nos interesaba investigar: (a) si los estudiantes podían desarrollar un modelo mental rico sobre un evento histórico, (b) qué harían con la información de los documentos, (c) cómo influenciaba la tarea el procesamiento de la información, (d) cómo integraban los estudiantes la información de distintos textos y (e) si l...

In three experiments, the demand that text processing imposes on learners' cognitive capacity was measured with a secondary-task technique. In all experiments, the meaning of the textual materials was held constant while several structural (surface) variables were manipulated. Experiment 1 showed that text versions with simplified vocabulary and syntax (but equivalent content) required less cognitive capacity to process than standard versions. Experiment 2 revealed that the reduction in use of cognitive capacity observed in Experiment 1 was due primarily to syntactic factors. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that texts containing signals about idea importance and idea relations required less cognitive capacity to process than texts with approximately the same propositional content, but no such signals. In each experiment, measures of total inspection time and content recall were also secured. In general, the findings of all three experiments indicated that aspects of the surface structure of text made demands on the reader's cognitive processing capacity.Appreciation is due for stimulating and helpful discussion of these results to

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