The effects of specificity and position of written instructional objectives on learning from a lecture.

52 The SB, GB and C groups began the test immediately after the tape finished reading Lecture Section #4 (task #12) so that there would be no time lag between contact with the content (at task 12) and beginning work on the test (at task #13) o If these groups had answered the final 9 vocabulary questions after the Lecture Section #4, as they had done after the 3 previous lecture sections (at tasks #4, #7, #10), a 2|’ time lag would have been introduced that would not have been present in the SA and GA groups which were reviewing their last set of objectives (task #13) immediately after Lecture Section #4 and directly prior to beginning the test (task #14) . The additional 36 vocabulary questions answered by the Control group served as filler material while the treatment groups were reading objectives,, These vocabulary questions were not used in analysis „ Before the taped presentation of each section of lecture the subjects were instructed to turn to a particular blank page in their booklets (at task #3, 6, 9, 12) and to keep that page open during the passage reading,, Subjects were instructed throughout the experiment not to turn to proceeding or succeeding pages in their booklets, and to continue working on the task specified on each page until the tape instructed them to stop. The five booklets are presented in Appendix F. The amount of time for inspection of objectives, text material in the lecture and the test were controlled by the experimenter and were uniform across all groups. 53 All subjects were instructed to answer all test questions, even if they had to guess. Subjects who received objectives before the sections of lecture (i.e., SB, GB) were instructed to learn only the information in the lecture which was related to the objectives„ The subjects who did not receive objectives before the subsections of lecture (i.e., GA, SA and C) were instructed before each lecture passage to learn everything in the material which would follow on tape. These instructions permitted testing intentional (relevant to objectives) and incidental (non—relevant ) learning. Because the booklets were bound and because different colored pages were used at different points in the experiment, it was relatively simple to monitor the subjects procedure through the experiment. Participation in the experiment took 53 minutes. Scoring The answer key for the vocabulary quest ions allows for only one correct answer per question. The answer key for the final test provides all acceptable answers for each question. No response other than those specified was accepted. Partial credit was not given on a question in which a partially correct response was given. The tests which were scored individually each yielded four scores; the number of correct vocabulary answers, the number of correct intentional 54 questions, the number of correct incidental questions and the total number of correct criterion test responses. Each of these numbers was converted to a percentage based on the total number of items in each of these four groups. The answer keys are presented in Appendix G, CHAPTER V RESULTS 55 Introduction The data analyses were designed to serve several purposeSo The first analysis was a series of Pearson Product Moment Correlations between the vocabulary scores and intentional, incidental and total learning scores. Correlations were computed for each experimental group and for all groups combined 0 The results of the correlational analyses established whether there was a sufficient relationship between vocabulary scores and learning scores to warrant an analysis of covariance,, Two multivariate analyses of covariance examined the data for main effects and interactions . A 2 (position) X 2 (specificity) multivariate analysis of covariance with intentional and incidental learning scores as dependent variables was conducted to determine if there were differences in the dependent variables due to position and specificity of objectives for the four treatment groups (SB, SA, GB, GA) 0 A 5X2 (groups X learning) multivariate analysis of covariance compared all 5 groups for differences in the two types of learning. Two univariate analyses were conducted in order to obtain comparisons not available from the multivariate analyses. The univariate 2 (position) X 2 (specificity) X 2 56 (learning) analysis of variance provided a test of significance for a mam effect due to learning and for interactions between learning and specificity and position 0 The univariate 5 (groups) X 2 (learning) analysis compared all experimental groups for differences in learning. °m these results, one-tailed Dunnett tests were computed to compare each treatment group with the Control group for differences in learning performance. These tests could not be conducted from the available multivariate data. Summary of Correlational Analyses Pearson Product Moment Correlations were computed on individual experimental groups and on all groups combined. Vocabulary scores were correlated with scores for intentional learning, incidental learning and total learning. The results of the combined group analyses are summarized in the following table. TABLE III COMBINED GROUP CORRELATIONAL ANALYSES Vocabulary with Correlation intentional . 45** incidental . 47** total score —— N * 160 Significance: * *<o05; ** *<*. 01 57 me results of these analyses indicate a significant positive relationship between vocabulary scores and the three learning measures. The correlations between vocabulary scores and measures of learning for each experimental group are contained in the following table. TABLE IV INDIVIDUAL GROUP CORRELATIONAL ANALYSES Vocabulary with SB SA GB GA Control intentional . 24 . 56** . 41* . 75** . 54** incidental . 61** . 55** . 34* . 57** . 38** total score . 53** . 58** . 41* . 75** . 52** N * 32 each group Signif icance : * . 05; ** = < . 01 It is interesting to note that the only correlation that did not reach significance was the correlation between intentional learning and vocabulary score in the SB group. The correlations between learning scores and vocabulary in the GB group, which had the highest overall learning, were significant at the ,05 level. The correlation between incidental learning and vocabulary in the Control group was significant at the . 05 level. All other correlations reached significance at p( . 01.