Britton, B. K., & Gulgoz, S. (1991). Using kintsch's computational model to improve instructional text: Effects of repairing inference calls on recall and cognitive structures. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(3), 329-345.
Britton, B.;Gulgoz, S.
1991
Britton, B. K., & Gulgoz, S. (1991). Using kintsch's computational model to improve instructional text: Effects of repairing inference calls on recall and cognitive structures. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(3), 329-345.
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The goal of this study was to link a computational psychological model to instructional practice. W. Kintsch's (Kintsch and T. A. Van Dijk, 1978; J. R. Miller and Kintsch, 1980) reading comprehension model was used to identify locations where inferences were called for in a 1,000-word expository text. Then each location was repaired to produce a principled revision. In an experiment with 170 undergraduates (N=170), free recall of the principled revision was much increased over that of the original version. Also, the author of the original text and 7 subject-matter experts provided measures of the shape of the original text's intended cognitive structure. The author's and experts' cognitive structure shapes correlated above .5 with the shapes provided by US Air Force recruits who read the principled revision but only .1 with recruits who read the original version. Apparently, the principled revision carried out the author's intentions better than the author's original text. It is concluded that Kintsch's model can be used to improve instructional text.
The results were consistent with our predictions that significantly more would be free recalled from the principled and heuristic version, than from the original version and that more inference questions would be answered correctly from the principled revision than from the original version. Also efficiency of learning was significantly higher in the principled revision than from the original version in the free-recall condition. Also as predicted, performance on the factual multiple-choice test did not differ between the principled revision and the original version, and the readability formula revision did not differ from the original version on any dependent measure.
170
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