Do Titles Matter? Effects of Text Titles on Motivation, Text Engagement, and Text Comprehension

• In Event: The Influences of the Reader, Text, and Task on Learning

Abstract

The present study investigated whether text-titles (concrete vs. abstract) affect motivation, text-engagement and text comprehension in learning tasks that require the conceptual understanding of expository text. The results of the study suggest that learners are more motivated to study passages with concrete titles, but that they do not seem to put this reported motivation into action – learners spent the same amount of time studying passages with concrete and abstract titles and solved the same amount of comprehension-test-items correctly, indicating that passages per se can motivate students to engage in study, as long as the passages are well-constructed.

Authors

• Marie Lippmann, Dresden University of Technology

• Neil H. Schwartz, California State University - Chico

• Susanne Narciss, Technische Universität Dresden

• Neil Jacobson, California State University - Chico