Effects on Prose Learning of Frequency of Adjunct Cues and the Difficulty of the Material Cued

Abstract

The extent to which underlining as an adjunct study aid influenced recall was investigated. Subjects were 64 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students and 61 college sophomores assigned to one of 5 conditions. The 5 conditions varied on amount of underlining and difficulty of material underlined. For each condition, exposure time was held constant. No significant differences among groups were found. The data indicate that, with time held constant, underlining is of limited value and may only manipulate which parts of a passage may be learned at the expense of other parts.