Role of Adjunct Questions and Subject Ability Levels on the Learning of Concepts from Prose

Abstract

This research evaluated the effects of examples used with application adjunct questions on concept learning. Subjects were 72 undergraduates at a large midwestern university. Subjects studied a passage containing either matched or unmatched application adjunct questions or no questions (regular and special instructions). The critical attributes of the to-be-learned concepts were more salient in the sets of examples and nonexamples presented in the matched questions than in the unmatched questions. Subjects took a criterion test which consisted of novel matched and unmatched application questions. The results indicated that application adjunct questions did not produce significantly higher performance on criterion questions than no-question treatments. Matched adjunct questions did, however, produce higher levels of performance on criterion questions than unmatched questions. High ability subjects performed better than low ability subjects within treatments, but there was no significant aptitude by treatment interaction.