Date of Award

1994

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Psychology

Keywords

Psychology, Developmental.

Supervisor

Kobasigawa, A.

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the efficacy of elaborative interrogation for the types of tasks university students confront. The utility of the technique was evaluated for university students studying a university-level text on Canadian physiography in preparation for matching and multiple-choice (MC) tests. Three types of processing were contrasted (elaborative interrogation versus imagery versus self-study). Text information was presented in one of two formats (individually-presented facts or text) (i.e., a 3 x 2 factorial design). Hypotheses concerning the pattern of findings were based on consideration of both the processing used by the students and the processing prompted by the passage. It was expected that for both format conditions, elaborative-interrogation and imagery students would outperform the corresponding self-study controls on the matching and factual MC questions. Overall poor performance on the higher-level MC questions was expected for all groups regardless of format. Contrary to expectation, matching performance did not differ for the processing groups for either format condition. A secondary analysis was conducted including only those elaborative-interrogation and imagery students who ranked in the top half of their respective groups in generation of adequate responses. All self-study students were retained. For this supplementary analysis, the pattern of results changed. Students using elaborative interrogation achieved significantly higher matching scores than their corresponding self-study controls, for both format conditions. For this secondary analysis, it was only for the text-format condition that the imagery students outperformed their self-study controls. Think-aloud data indicated that students in the self-study groups were primarily relying on rote-learning techniques. There was no facilitation of factual MC performance for the elaborative-interrogation or imagery groups relative to the self study controls. For the higher-level MC questions only the elaborative-interrogation text-format students significantly outperformed their self-study controls (for primary and secondary analysis). Findings were discussed in terms of the types of generative processing prompted by elaborative-interrogation and imagery in contrast to the processing used by the self-study students.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1994 .M3775. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: B, page: 6419. Adviser: A. Kobasigawa. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1994.

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