Konopak, B. C. (1988). Effects of inconsiderate vs. considerate text on secondary students' vocabulary learning. Journal of Reading Behavior, 20(1), 25-41.

Konopak, B.

1988

Konopak, B. C. (1988). Effects of inconsiderate vs. considerate text on secondary students' vocabulary learning. Journal of Reading Behavior, 20(1), 25-41.

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This study examined differences in 55 11th graders' vocabulary learning from original and revised contextual information. Materials included 2 passages from a US history text, each embedding 10 pertinent target words. One version left the original passage intact; a 2nd version was revised for each target word according to 4 contextual characteristics. Ss were of high and average ability. Results show that the high-ability group outscored the average-ability group on all dependent measures, although both groups did significantly better on posttest over pretest tasks. On the revised text passages, Ss received higher scores on both word definition and significance measures but not on the indication of knowledge measure. Findings suggest that contextual information in natural text may be inconsiderate for word learning, but students may be satisfied with the partial/erroneous knowledge acquired.

The findings of this study can be summarized as follows: (a) higher-ability students outscored the average-ability students on all measures, although (b) all students scored significantly better on posttest tasks. In addition, (c) the revised text passages elicited better responses from all students on both the definition and significance measures; however, (d) there were no differences on the self-report of knowledge measure.

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