Poster #27 - Contributions of Process Versus Product Instructions in the Transfer of Scientific Concepts

• In Event: 75.043 - MTCC Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: 75.043-6 - Experimental Studies of Literacy

Abstract

Traditional manipulations of task-oriented reading do not control for whether goals are product- versus product-oriented. In the present student, participants read a science text with either a process-only goal (self-explanation reading training, McNamara, 2004), a product-only goal (reading the text to write a quality explanation that integrates text content with knowledge), both the process-and-product goals, or a control condition. The process-only and product-only groups demonstrated better performance on transfer questions than the control and process-and-product groups. This suggests that instructional manipulations may place additional load on already limited cognitive resources. The process-only instructions resulted in the highest performance. The findings support the utility of more clearly distinguishing between, and scaffolding, process- and product-oriented instructions in research and practice.

Authors

• Catherine M. Bohn-Gettler, College of Saint Benedict

• Matthew T. McCrudden, The Pennsylvania State University