Effects of summarization and elaboration on the acquisition of factual information

Abstract

In the three studies reported here, the relative effectiveness of questioning and summarization strategies was investigated in the context of manipulating the domain-specificity of to-be-learned factual information. Undergraduate students were asked to study expository text information about familiar and unfamiliar animals either by generating summaries, answering "why" a given fact is true, or reading information. Findings revealed fundamental differences in the ways in which generating summaries and answering "why-questions" might facilitate learning, with summarization prompting integration and answering "why-questions" prompting both integration of novel information and activation of prior knowledge. Also, differences in the efficiency of the strategies were discussed. Specifically, differences among the strategies might be apparent in the supports required to implement the strategies effectively, as well as in the potential for eliciting the compounding of strategies through spontaneous activation of other associative strategies. Educational implications pertaining to the importance of promoting effective strategy use as opposed to simply encouraging production of strategies are discussed.