Abstract

Subjects reconstructed paragraphs from scrambled passages. There were two passages (240 and 400 words) and three conditions (read-only, reconstruct with no feedback, and reconstruct with feedback). The dependent measures were recall of idea units, recognition of original sentences, and concordance with the original paragraph clustering. ANOVA yielded: (1) higher recall for idea units for the shorter passage and reconstruct-no feedback condition, (2) higher recognition for original sentences for the reconstruct-no feedback condition, and (3) greater concordance for the longer passage and reconstruct-feedback condition. Generally speaking, feedback seemed to intrude into the reconstruction process, and increased concordance did not lead to improved comprehension. This paper is one in a series of experiments concerned with the synthesis of meaning from text in an instructional context. Specifically, scrambled discourse is reconstructed with feedback, and comprehension is assessed by approximation to the original (concordance). Our research has not dealt with the mechanics of processing discourse but with the instructional problems associated with feedback and processing text. Traditionally, these areas have not been related in any systematic manner.

Citations