Typographical and Spatial Cues that Facilitate Learning from Textbooks.

Typographical and spatial cues that facilitate learning from textbooks Wayne L. Shebilske and John A. Rotondo Ninety-six undergraduates at the University of Virginia studied a 2866 word excerpt from a tenth grade biology textbook either in a standard typographical layout or in a special one containing typographical and spatial cues. Both groups studied the text for about nineteen minutes. (Results of paraphrastic recall, a multiple choice test, and a questionnaire suggested that the typograpical and spatial cues facilitated learning and memory.) Potential classroom applications were discussed. (The format used here is similar but not identical to the one we used.) Here we used bold face letters for emphasis; in the experiment we used capital letters because it was easier on a typewriter. Here the authors determined the segmentation units; in the experiment groups of college students determined them. The instructions for using our format are: (The passage is printed in a special format using line spaces, brackets, and bold face letters. Line spaces set off each idea, and brackets set off the gist of each idea, whether or not the idea is important. When an idea is important, its gist is in bold print.) When we read a text to learn, we assilimilate its semantic core , often remembering it in our own words instead of in its original surface representation . [Whether we realize it or not, however, surface representation influences our reading and our memory for what we read.] For example, readers find answers to true-false questions faster when a text provides spatial cues about its grammatical phrase structure (Frase & Schwartz, 1979; Hartley, 1980) and sentences are reread faster when the first and second presentation have the same typography (Kolers, 1975) . The latter result suggests that surface representation is an integral part of memory and sets the stage for developing typographies that facilitate memory. [In the present study, we endeavored to develop typographical and spatial cues that would improve learning and memory of a 2866 word excerpt from a tenth grade biology textbook.] 42 Shebilske and Rotondo