The Effect of Metacognitive Instruction in Outlining and Graphic Organizer Construction on Students' Comprehension in a Tenth-Grade World History Class

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to explore the effect of graphic organizer instruction versus outlining on students' text recall in tenth-grade world history. Based on the hierarchical structure of graphic organizers depicting interrelationships among ideas, we hypothesized that students instructed in the use of graphic organizers would display significantly higher text recall than a group using outlines. Seventy-two tenth graders in three sections of world history participated in the study. Two sections received systematic instruction in the development of graphic organizers and a third section received parallel instruction in outlining. One of the two graphic organizer sections had previous instruction in summarization and question generation during an 154Journal of Reading Behavior earlier study. Six 15-item multiple-choice quizzes comprised one of the dependent measures. On the first five quizzes there were no significant differences between the three sections. However, when teacher prompting was phased-out on quiz six, the graphic organizer group with previous training in summarization significantly outperformed the other two groups. Additionally, on a second dependent measure involving the development of a written recall protocol based on difficult college level text, the group with previous summarization experience significantly outperformed both the new graphic organizer group and the outlining section. Implications for a cumulative, long-range view of metacognitive instruction are discussed.

Graphic Organizers as a Reading Strategy: Research Findings and Issues

“…Jiang and Grabe (2007) strongly support that instead of being discouraged and frustrated in the inconsistency of the above findings, it is important to view the issue from a different perspective and start further exploring the specific area. Furthermore, research that involves longer intervention is required, as most studies spend a few hours or a couple of days on GO training, because students need extended instructional time to be exposed to practice in GOs in order to achieve strategy mastery and be able to use them independently in new learning situations, which is in accordance with previous research findings (Alvermann, 1981;Alvermann & Boothby, 1986;Bean et al, 1986;DiCecco & Gleason, 2002;Jiang & Grabe, 2007;Kim et al, 2004;Moore & Readence, 1984;Schmid & Telaro, 1990). Future research should also assess longterm retention, maintenance and transfer of training effects of GOs on comprehension skills allowing a month or more to pass, since maintenance is the most desired outcome of strategy training.…”

“…Namely, Alvermann (1981) did not manage to fully support the effectiveness of GOs on reading comprehension; Bean, Singer, Sorter, and Frazee (1986) and Simmons et al (1988) consider GO training to be no more effective than outlining or traditional instruction for increasing students' comprehension and retention of text information. Moreover, Balajthy & Weisberg (1990) fail to provide a statistically significant improvement in passage comprehension or summarization scores highlighting that GO training mostly favors lower ability groups.…”

“…However, based on the information derived from previous research (Jiang & Grabe, 2007), one critical factor that can affect the findings of the various studies is the length of training period. In other words, researchers assert that the length of instruction can be a significant variable in classroom studies in order to achieve strategy mastery accentuating the need for longer interventions (Alvermann, 1981;Alvermann & Boothby, 1986;Bean et al, 1986;Schmid & Telaro, 1990).…”

Optimal presentation of graphic organizers and text: A case for large bites?

“…In the earliest GO research, GOs had been presented prior to text with little success (Barron, 1969;Barron & Cooper, 1973;Earle, 1969;Estes, Mills, & Barron, 1969) and after text with moderate success (Alvermann, 1980(Alvermann, , 1981Barron, 1979;Barron & Stone, 1974;Bean, Singer, Sorter & Frazee, 1986;Boothby & Alvermann, 1984;Huard, 1983). For this reason, the original term structured overview was changed to graphic organizer as the instructional position switched from pretext to posttext (an overview is usually presented before the content).…”

Using Advances in Cognitive Science to Improve Students Study Skills and Reading Comprehension

“…While graphic organizers and summaries can be completed while students are reading, they might best be used after students have read the text. As concise representations, graphic organizers and summaries can be a useful resource when studying or preparing for exams and courses (Bean, Singer, & Frazee, 1986 ;Radmacher & Latosi-Sawin, 1995 ).…”