The Effects of Relevance Instructions on Immediate and Delayed Recall and Comprehension of Expository Text

• In Event: Roundtable Session 126
  In Roundtable Session: Teaching and Learning With Historical Documents, Textbooks, and Expository Texts

Abstract

We investigated how relevance instructions affect memory for an expository text both immediately and after a one week delay. Forty-three female and 11 male undergraduates read a 1,161-word passage, which described the characteristics of four remote countries (Andorra, Anguilla, Honduras, and Pitcairn) under one of three types of relevance instructions: general, specific, or control. Students completed free recall both immediately after reading and one week later, when they also completed cued recall and sentence recognition tests. Results indicated that general instructions facilitated free recall more than specific instructions or instructions to read for understanding. Relevance instructions had no effect on cued recall or sentence recognition.

Authors

• Vivian Lee Surwill, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• CarolAnne M. Kardash, University of Nevada - Las Vegas