Thinking out loud while studying text: Rehearsing key ideas.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify mechanisms by which instructional objectives produce their effects on learning. College students studied text with and without objectives. The objectiverelevant information was either important (high) or unimportant (low) in the content structure of the text. Protocols for thinking out loud were examined for evidence of rehearsal activity. The dependent measures were rehearsal activity, free recall, and reading time of the objective-relevant information. The results indicated that rehearsal activity and recall were greater and reading times were longer with objectives than without objectives. Rehearsal activity was correlated significantly with recall and reading time; recall also was correlated significantly with reading time. In addition, more information was recalled when the objective-relevant information was high in the content structure. The results suggest that instructional objectives promote real-time rehearsal activity-that is, the activity of mentally repeating, paraphrasing, and summarizing information so as to commit it to memory.Authors can help readers in a variety of ways to identify the most important ideas in an instructional text. One way is to introduce the text with a list of instructional objectives. Instructional objectives are learning goals, either statements or questions, designed to point out the important information to identify and commit to memory. Research shows that instructional objectives increase learning that is relevant to the objectives (e.g.,

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