Effect of Prequestions on Control of Attention in Written Instruction

Abstract

It was predicted that varying the kind of prequestion asked would differentially affect the inspection behaviour of students reading a given passage. Primary school pupils (80 5th and 6th graders) read a short passage after being asked either a specific, general, or integrative question. A no-question control group also read the passage before all subjects attempted a multiple choice test. Consistent with previous findings, a specific prequestion most effectively focussed attention on particular points. General prequestions ostensibly referred the reader to more of the passage, but it can be inferred from test data that there was no advantage from this spread of attention unless the extra information was organized or ‘integrated’. The results were interpreted in terms of control of attention to critical stimuli.

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