Facilitating Learning From Technology-Enhanced Text: Effects of Prompted Elaborative Interrogation

Abstract

The authors examined the use of the elaborative interrogation (EI) strategy with a lengthy text in a technology-enhanced environment. As commonly found in traditional and online text materials, questions appeared in the right margins of the text. Seventy-five randomly assigned volunteers in 2 conditions read instructional materials delivered by the Internet. Dependent measures included learning outcomes of free recall, recognition, and transfer tasks. At immediate and delayed testing, differences between higher order recognition questions and number of elaboration units recalled provided support for integrating EI prompts in technology-enhanced environments. Design suggestions for development and use of Web-based instruction materials in K-16 classrooms are discussed. Future research directions that more fully investigate EI and other strategy prompts within technology-enhanced materials are provided.

A comparison of the effects of students’ expository text comprehension strategies

“…Consistent with other related recent research (e.g., Dornisch and Sperling 2006;Dreyer and Nel 2003) and practice, learners are increasingly required to read electronically delivered text for their academic classes (NCES 2000). The target text, with a Flesch-Kinkaid reading level of 12.0, was a 5518-word passage from an actual American History survey text (Foner 2005).…”

“…When important ideas and facts are embedded in the context of other information, prior knowledge may be activated before the elaboration even occurs, thus reducing the effectiveness of the EI strategy. Further, findings from Dornisch and Sperling (2006) suggested learners may not be able to construct elaborated responses to questions embedded in longer texts.…”

“…Typical scoring protocols score responses as simply ''adequate,'' ''inadequate,'' or ''no response.' ' Dornisch and Sperling (2006) used a more extensive and specific scoring rubric for assessing learners' level of transfer after elaboration strategies. Future research should examine how well students generate EI questions and may further illuminate students' actual use of the EI strategy.…”

“…EI has been studied with children and adults, regular education students and exceptional children, and individuals as well as groups. However, only a limited number of studies have addressed older learners and longer text (e.g., Boudreau et al 1999;Dornisch and Sperling 2006;Hamilton 1997).…”

The effects of levels of elaboration on learners’ strategic processing of text

“…Even in studies that employ slightly longer texts, learner outcomes have primarily focused on definitions of target concepts, specific examples used in the text, and main ideas of paragraphs (Boudreau et al 1999;Hamilton 1997, Seiffert 1993. Exceptions include two studies that examined problem-solving items (Dornisch and Sperling 2006;Hamilton 1997), a study that examined EI's efficacy in learning both factual and inferential information (McDaniel and Donnelly 1996), and Ozgungor and Guthrie's (2004) study that addressed not only recall, but also inference and coherence.…”