The present study examined instructional conditions that underly the learning and retention of a group of three related concepts represented in a taxonomy of behaviour management concepts. A total of 225 students in fifth and sixth form classes read instructional material on the first day of the study and were assessed on the second and eighth days. Both advance and post organizers were found to facilitate the learning and retention of the superordinate-coordinate-subordinate relationships among the concepts. Whereas an organizer did not facilitate the initial learning of the individual concepts, both an advance and post organizer significantly affected the retention of the concepts. The sequence in which the concepts were taught did not influence learning or retention. It was concluded that the internal organization of information is an extremely important condition for durable concept learning.
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