Learning From Explicit Versus Implicit Texts

SUMMARY The present studies assess whether academically less successful fifth graders can be helped to improve their abilities to learn from relatively complex passages that require learners to generate their own elaborations. In the first experiment, less successful students received either an explicit passage on the first trial (the explicit passage provided elaborations that made the information less arbitrary) or an implicit passage (no elaborations were provided in the text); both groups then received a second, implicit passage to learn. The less successful students who received explicit passages on the first trial remembered as much about the passages as successful students. Nevertheless, exposure to an explicit passage on the first trial did not help the less successful students improve their ability to learn from the implicit passage received on the second trial. Both groups of less successful students (those who received either an explicit passage or an Implicit passage first) performed more poorly on the second trial than their academically successful peers. The results of Experiment 2, which involved more focused training, indicate that less successful fifth graders could indeed learn from implicit passages that required spontaneous, self-generated elaborations. Implications for helping students learn to learn are discussed.