Effects of headings on text processing.

Abstract

Reports 2 experiments concerned with the effects of headings, both embedded and intact (outline), on the processing of complex text material. Results of Exp I with 132 undergraduates indicate that embedded headings reliably improved delayed test performance. In Exp II with 106 Ss, it was further found that instructions in the use of headings as processing aids facilitated test performance. A discrepancy, however, was observed between the 2 experiments in that the presentation of headings without instructions failed to increase test scores significantly on the dependent measures of Exp II. Sensitization to the headings is proposed as one possible explanation for the results. (34 ref)

Reading for a Multiple-Choice Test: Headings as Schema Activators

“…This finding supports the suggestion that part of the beneficial effect of headings derives from their tendency to activate relevant schémas in the reader during the encoding of the passage material. The fact that headings did not significantly affect the performance of the subjects in the low preexisting knowledge group suggests that headings did not influence encoding by promoting the interrelating of concepts and did not influence retrieval by serving as cues at the time of test (Brooks et al, 1983) for the subjects with low preexisting knowledge. This possibility that headings did not encourage the interrelating of concepts and the use of the headings as retrieval cues by the low preexisting knowledge group is consistent with the assumption that the effectiveness of headings in promoting these encoding and retrieval operations is somewhat dependent on the headings successfully activating preexisting knowledge about the topic.…”

“…As was noted in the results section, vocabulary score was used as a covariate in the main analysis of this experiment to control statistically for one aspect of general ability that might be expected to be related to performance on the retention test. As Brooks et al (1983) have noted, the control for vocabulary knowledge is important because correlations between measures of vocabulary knowledge and other measures of verbal ability tend to be moderately high. Furthermore, the results from the reanalysis in which subjects were grouped on the basis of vocabulary knowledge support the assumption that the significant interaction of preexisting knowledge group and headings group in the main analysis of the data was not an artifact of differences in the vocabulary knowledge of the two preexisting knowledge groups.…”

“…1;Wilhite, 1986), suggesting that headings can have a general facilitative effect on memory for expository prose. In their study, Brooks et al (1983) suggested that headings may facilitate memory by activating schémas relevant to the passage topic, by encouraging the interrelating of concepts in the text, and by providing cues for subsequent retrieval. The present study was designed to investigate to what extent schema activation is in fact involved in any facilitative effect that headings may have on multiple-choice test performance following the reading of a passage.…”

Conceptual change with refutational maps

“…For example, inserting questions into text can increase recall and comprehension of textual information (Reinking et al, 1996). Other examples are using headings to help readers process complex text materials (Brooks et al, 1983) and using bold typeface to alert learners to attend to those highlighted key words (Robinson & Katayama, 1999). As well, graphic displays have been reported as an effective diagrammatic technique for presenting textual information as discussed in the next section.…”

“…In fact, text comprehension is a complex and dynamic process which requires readers to integrate their prior knowledge with textual information to construct a mental representation of the text (Anderson & Botticelli, 1990;van Broek & Kendeou, 2008). To address this concern, several techniques for structuring text, such as inserting headings or questions into text, have been employed by researchers to help students process and construct knowledge (Brooks, Dansereau, Spurlin, & Holley, 1983;Reinking, Pickle, & Tao, 1996).…”