Journal of Literacy Research

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Journal ofhttp://jlr.sagepub.com/ Literacy Research

An Initial Validation of a Study Strategy System Michele L. Simpson, Christopher G. Hayes, Norman Stahl, Robert T. Connor and Dera Weaver Journal of Literacy Research 1988 20: 149 DOI: 10.1080/10862968809547632 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/20/2/149

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Journal of Reading Behavior 1988, Volume XX, No. 2

AN INITIAL VALIDATION OF A STUDY STRATEGY SYSTEM

Michele L. Simpson University of Arizona

Christopher G. Hayes University of Georgia

Norman Stahl Northern Illinois University

Robert T. Connor University of Georgia

Dera Weaver University of Georgia

ABSTRACT This study sought to determine the effectiveness of an integrated study strategy system that used self-assigned student writing as a means of learning psychology content. Sixty-five college freshmen from four sections of a reading/study strategy course were trained over a 3-week period to use either a question-answer recitation format or PORPE (Predict, Organize, Rehearse, Practice, and Evaluate). All subjects took an initial and delayed multiple choice test and an essay exam which were used as the dependent measures. The essays were scored for content, organization, and cohesion. The results indicated that the students trained in PORPE scored significantly better than the Question-Answer students on both the recall and recognition measures. In addition, the PORPE essay answers were significantly more organized and cohesive than the essays of the students trained in answering questions. It was concluded that PORPE can be a potent, durable, and efficient independent study strategy for college students in their efforts to learn content area concepts.

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While experts continue to extol the integrated use of writing and reading as potent vehicles of learning, little empirical evidence exists to explain why that integration actually works (Applebee, 1984), and little evidence exists to show that students can successfully employ writing as an independent strategy in order to learn content area concepts (Langer, 1986; Newell, 1984). The research that does exist has typically taken one of two approaches in examining the effects of writing upon reading and subsequent learning. The first line of research has focused upon writing as a means of knowledge activation. The second line has examined the impact of writing as a postreading strategy to assist students in the assimilation and synthesis of concepts. The present authors were interested in these lines of research, particularly the latter, and in the implications such research had for instructors training college students to employ independent learning strategies. Specifically, the authors wanted to determine the extent to which using writing as an integrated part of a study strategy could improve student learning of content area material, as measured by the traditional recognition and recall exams used in college settings. To date, the research studies that have investigated the effects of writing after reading as a means of improving content area learning have centered primarily upon summarization and the analytical essay. A review of that research follows. Summarization Extensive research suggests that summarization is a developmental skill (Brown, Day, & Jones, 1983; Johnson, 1982; Winograd, 1984) requiring training that can be facilitated by the use of formalized and explicit rules (Brown & Day, 1983; Hare & Borchardt, 1984; Johnson, 1982). Accordingly, researchers have amassed convincing evidence for the use of summarization as a means of remembering content area material when students have received training in how to summarize (Dansereau, McDonald, Long, Atkinson, Ellis, Collins, Williams, & Evans, 1974; Doctorow, Wittrock, & Marks, 1978; King, Biggs, & Lipsky, 1984; Linden & Wittrock, 1981; Pio & Andre, 1977). While this line of research seems initially encouraging, several problems need to be acknowledged. First of all, many studies have not been able to demonstrate decidedly that students trained in summarization will be able to score higher on objective exams than students employing alternative strategies or approaches (Brozo, Stahl, & Gordon, 1985; Dansereau et al., 1974; King et al., 1984; Linden & Wittrock, 1981; Pio & Andre, 1977). King et al. (1984) and Garner (1982) have both suggested that this limitation may be due to the very features of the summary— the deletion of details or supporting facts. A second concern with the summarization studies—and perhaps one reason for the summary's inefficacy—is that the task of writing a summary is typically defined by the researcher or teacher instead of by the learner. Learner-oriented summaries are those that students produce for themselves in order to facilitate as well as

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monitor their understanding and learning. Audience-oriented summaries, on the other hand, are products that students write for someone else (i.e., teachers or researchers) to demonstrate their ability to identify and accurately condense key ideas of a given text. The learner-oriented summary is more closely aligned to the actual context of successful learning (Jenkins, 1979) in that the goals, tasks, interests, and knowledge of the summarizer or writer coalesce and interact to form the final product (i.e., a summary). The implicit freedom within learner-oriented summaries better guides students toward becoming independent learners than does the audience-oriented summary with its formal and often limiting constraints on grammar, style, structure, and space (Hidi and Anderson, 1986). A third concern with the research on summarization as a learning strategy has to do with an overriding emphasis on easily and quickly quantified measures of content (e.g., number of idea units or number of questions answered correctly) to the exclusion of qualitative measures that attempt to explain how a writer combines, synthesizes, arranges, and globally orders separate pieces of information into a meaningful, whole discourse. Any analysis of written summaries intended to measure content-specific understanding should also include measures of the ways the writer connects and orders elements of that content. The expectation would be that a relationship would exist between measures of content-specific understanding (e.g., idea units or holistic scores on content) and indices of an essay's overall coherence (or organization) and cohesion (Fahnestock, 1983; Odell, 1977; Winterowd, 1975). No studies of summarization as a learning strategy have examined coherence and cohesion. The Analytical Essay Recently, Langer (1986) and Newell (1984) have examined writing as a learning strategy in a format other than the summary—the analytical essay. In both studies, high school students were directed to read a 400-1,000 word excerpt and then respond in one of three ways: (a) answer questions about the assigned passage, (b) take notes on the assigned passage, or (c) write an analytical essay that would apply the concepts from the assigned passage to a new situation. While there were no significant main effects for task on overall recall of idea units, of content units, of relationship units, or application of concepts, Newell did find that the essay writing group produced a consistently more abstract set of associations for key concepts than did the other writing groups. Langer (1986) reported similar results in her related study, in that topic knowledge increased most from essay writing, next from notetaking, and least from question-answering. Both Langer and Newell concluded that analytical essay writing tasks require students to be less bound by the immediate text and more involved in the reorganizing, integrating, and assimilating of new concepts. While Langer and Newell's research does address some of the limitations of the

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summarization studies, the effects of training students how to write the analytical essay are still unknown. A more serious limitation to the analytical essay studies and to the summarization studies is that they do not seem to offer students the cognitive and metacognitive processes necessary to guide them through the act of reading, studying, writing, and learning. Hence, the authors hypothesized that a more comprehensive package of processes, such as the ones offered in PORPE (Simpson, 1986), might make more of a difference in student learning, whether it be defined by recognition or recall measures. An explanation and rationale of the writing strategy PORPE follows. PORPE: A Theoretical Rationale PORPE is an independent study strategy which operationalizes the cognitive and metacognitive processes that effective readers engage in to understand and subsequently learn content area material. Baker and Brown (1984) have described effective readers as those who (a) clarify the purposes of reading (understanding both the explicit and implicit task demands), (b) identify the important aspects of a message, (c) focus attention on the major content rather than the trivia, (d) monitor ongoing activities to determine whether comprehension is occurring, (e) engage in self-questioning to determine whether goals are being achieved, and (f) take corrective action when failures in understanding are determined. Those first three processes listed by Baker and Brown have been described by Cook and Mayer (1983) as the encoding processes that involve the learner in the manipulation of incoming information. The four general types of encoding processes most relevant for reading and studying are selection, acquisition, construction, and integration. The last three of Baker and Brown's list have been described by Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, and Campione (1982) as the metacognitive processes used to regulate and oversee learning. When students employ the steps of PORPE while they read and study they behave like Baker and Brown's "effective readers" who are encoding information and regulating their own learning. With PORPE, students are involved in Predicting potential essay questions to guide subsequent study; Organizing key ideas using their own words, structure, and methods; Rehearsing the key ideas; Practicing the recall of the key ideas in self-assigned writing tasks that require analytical thinking; and Evaluating the completeness, accuracy, and appropriateness of their written product in terms of the original task, the self-predicted essay question. These five steps of PORPE are synergistic in that they build upon each other and guide students through the processes necessary to read, study, and learn content area material. A more detailed description and rationale for each step will clarify how the encoding and regulatory processes are involved in PORPE. The steps, theoretical rationale, and research basis for PORPE are summarized in Figure 1.

RESEARCH BASIS

TACTICS

TACTICAL ACTION

THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT

PREDICT

Predict possible essay questions on the material to clarify purposes for subsequent study, identify critical aspects of text, and focus on major content.

Encoding process of selection Processing text in an elaborative

Cook & Mayer (1983) Reder (1980), Rickards & DiVesta (1974)

Planning aspect of writing

Tierney & Pearson (1983)

Organize key ideas pertinent to the self-predicted essay question using one's own words, structure, and methods. Summarize and synthesize ideas via maps, charts, outlines.

Encoding processes of selection, acquisition, and construction Planning and organizing ideas for later writing

Cook & Mayer (1983), Weinstein & Mayer (1986)

REHEARSE

Rehearse the organizational structure and key ideas via active self-recitation.

Monitoring, self-questioning, and taking corrective action Rehearsing promotes learning

Baker & Brown (1984)

PRACTICE

Practice by writing an essay answer to the self-predicted question from recall.

Encoding processes of integration Writing facilitates higher levels of thinking Writing requires a necessary form to demonstrate understanding Writing is a generative process

Cook & Mayer (1983)

Self-regulating process of monitoring, checking, and evaluating Writing as feedback and reinforcement to the learner

Baker & Brown (1984)

ORGANIZE

EVALUATE

Evaluate with a checklist the ' completeness, accuracy, and appropriateness of the essay. A positive evaluation indicates a readiness for the test. A negative evaluation indicates a need to loop back into the previous steps of PORPE.

Tierney & Pearson (1983)

Anderson (1978), Gagne (1978), Smith (1967)

Emig (1977), Langer (1986), Newell (1984) Coe (1987), Richards (1936)

Berthoff (1981), Stotsky (1986)

Emig (1977), Langer (1986)

Figure 1. Steps, theoretical constructs, and research basis for PORPE

Co

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Predict. Cook and Mayer (1983) would describe this first step of PORPE as involving the encoding processes of selection because it asks the learner to pay attention to the important pieces of information in the passage. When students are asked to predict possible essay questions on the material they have read, they are involved in clarifying the purposes of their subsequent study. This Predict step is also somewhat akin to the planning aspect of writing and reading tasks described by Tierney and Pearson (1983) in that the learner is involved in setting purposes, focusing, and self-questioning. By posing several general or higher order essay questions that ask for a synthesis and discussion, a comparison and contrast, or an evaluation of the key concepts from a chapter, students are forced to process the text in a more active or elaborative manner as they read and study (Reder, 1980; Rickards & DiVesta, 1974). While theory and tradition have routinely supported the efficacy of prediction and self-questioning on a general or higher order level because these strategies encourage active and elaborative processing, the research studies have been more equivocal in their support. In her seminal review Reder (1980) stressed that "merely asking a question will not produce improved performance. The question must force the subject to process relevant aspects of the text in 'useful' ways" (p. 10). Of the 27 studies critically reviewed by Wong (1985), only 4 examined the actual quality of self-generated questions on student comprehension. Hori (1977) found a significant difference in understanding for the subjects trained in predicting general or higher order essay questions while the other 3 studies found no difference (Frase & Schwartz, 1975; Sadker & Cooper, 1974; Smith, 1977). The Predict step in itself may be somewhat questionable as an independent study strategy, but when placed within the synergistic model PORPE, it becomes an essential catalyst which stimulates and unifies the other four steps of PORPE. Organize. When students organize the key ideas of a passage which are pertinent to a self-predicted essay question, they are involved in selecting, acquiring, and constructing, all critical encoding processes (Cook & Mayer, 1983). This Organize step of PORPE is also very similar to the drafting stage of writing and reading tasks described by Tierney and Pearson (1983) in that the learner is beginning to plan and organize information for subsequent writing. Specific research studies would suggest that subjects taught the encoding processes of selection, acquisition, and construction are able to improve their prose recall and recognition (Armbruster, 1979; Dansereau, 1979; Dansereau, Collins, McDonald, Holley, Garland, Diekhoff, & Evans, 1979; Steenwyk, Bean, & Inabinette, 1985; Weinstein & Mayer, 1986; Weisberg & Balajthy, 1985). The last two cited studies are particularly interesting since the subjects were taught to map in order to improve their summary writing and subsequent recall. Rehearse. The third step of PORPE, Rehearse, engages students in the active self-recitation and self-testing of the key ideas in their maps or outlines. In a sense,

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students are verbally answering their self-predicted essay questions so that the key ideas can become transferred to working memory. This active rehearsal in PORPE characterizes what effective learners, described by Baker and Brown (1984), must do—monitor, self-question, and take corrective action when necessary. Numerous research studies have also stressed the importance of rehearsal in the learning process (Anderson, 1978; Gagne, 1978; Smith, 1967). Practice. The fourth step of PORPE, Practice, involves students in creating from memory their own text which answers their self-predicted essay question. This Practice step is an integrative encoding process in that during the act of writing students are building connections between their existing knowledge and schemata and the key ideas from the passage. Meaningful learning which requires students to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate must be based on all four encoding processes (Cook & Mayer, 1983). Hence, the necessity of the fourth step, Practice. Writing is an integrative process because written language (a) is a support system which facilitates higher levels of thinking (Emig, 1977; Langer, 1986; Newell, 1984), (b) requires a necessary form to demonstrate understanding (Coe, 1987; Richards, 1936), and (c) is a generative process for creating meaning (Berthoff, 1981; Stotsky, 1986). Thus, for these three reasons, the fourth step of PORPE, writing, becomes the most critical step in this comprehensive study strategy. However, the potency of PORPE is also dependent upon the last step, Evaluate, since it is here that students learn how to use this writing in studying content area concepts. Evaluate. The final step of PORPE, Evaluate, requires students to use their writing in order to validate whether they have created a meaningful text which demonstrates their understanding of the content and to evaluate their text as another reader might. To facilitate this monitoring and evaluating, students are provided a checklist and are asked to read their essays with these six questions in mind: (a) Did I answer the question directly? (b) Did my essay have an introductory sentence which restated the essay question or took a position on the question? (c) Was my essay organized with major points or ideas which were made obvious to the reader? (d) Did my essay include relevant details or examples to prove and clarify each point? (e) Did I use transitions to cue the reader? (f) Did my essay make sense and show my knowledge of the content? Hence, the students' essays written in step four, Practice, provide them a specific and immediate feedback and reinforcement to their own learning and understanding (Emig, 1977; Langer, 1986; Smith, 1982). Purpose of Study The purpose of this study, then, was to determine the effectiveness of PORPE as an independent learning strategy in a naturalistic college setting. The performance of students who had been trained in PORPE was compared to the per-

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formance of a similar group of students who used writing in a more traditional and restrictive manner. Three related hypotheses guided the experiment. First, it was hypothesized that training in the PORPE strategy would have a significant impact on both the multiple choice and essay exam scores, since the PORPE students would be actively and elaboratively involved in the cognitive and metacognitive processes essential to their independent learning. It was further hypothesized that this active involvement, if it existed, would be reflected in measures of content, organization, and cohesion in the students' essays. A third hypothesis, which stemmed from Newell's (1984) recommendations, was that the PORPE strategy would positively affect delayed recognition and recall measures. In other words, this third and previously untested hypothesis held that the effects of writing via the PORPE strategy would be more distinctly realized over time.

METHOD Subjects Subjects were 65 college freshmen, enrolled in developmental reading/study strategy courses at two state supported universities. Of the 65 subjects, 25 were male and 40 were female; 32 were Caucasian and 33 were Black. The students were admitted to and enrolled in the respective universities through the developmental studies program because their Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and/or high school grade point averages were below basic criteria for regular admission to either university. None of the subjects, however, had decoding or severe reading comprehension problems and all were judged to possess the potential to undertake college work. Rather, they were placed in these study strategy courses because initial placement tests indicated that they had deficiencies in processing lengthy pieces of expository text. Two intact classes from each of the two universities were randomly assigned to each treatment condition, for a total of two experimental and two control groups. To insure similarity across the four groups and across the two universities, the subjects' SAT verbal scores were collected and then used as a covariate in the data analyses. Materials The instructional materials and assessment instruments were designed for this research study. Both sets of materials were chosen as being representative of college classroom learning contexts, and therefore directly applicable to real educational problems (Snow, 1974). Instructional materials. Excerpts for the three different training sessions were selected from a college level introduction to psychology textbook (Lahey, 1983).

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1. 2. 3. 4.

Define recall. Give an example. (Definition, Example) Why is recall usually more difficult? (Explanation) Define redintegration. What are some characteristics? (Characteristics) What are the four internal mechanisms that help us recall material. (Superstructure) 5. Define and give an example of an omission behavior. (Definition, Example) 6. What evidence exists to support the trace decay theory? (Explanation) 7. How can proactive inhibition be weakened? (Explanation) 8. What are the two theories of forgetting? Define each. (Definition, Superstructure) 9. An old person remembering childhood experiences or events supports what theory. (Application) 10. When is recognition not easier than recall? (Explanation) 11. What type of remembering is this assignment? (Application) Figure 2. Sample questions for the criterion passage entitled "Remembering and Forgetting" (22 total) Excerpt I (1,658 words) for the first training session was entitled "The Development of Motivational Concepts." Excerpt II (2,020 words) was entitled "The Measurement of Mental Ability." Excerpt III, the criterion training passage, was entitled "Remembering and Forgetting" and contained 3,844 words. AH three excerpts were estimated to be at the college level as measured by the Raygor Readability Formula (1979). Tne subjects in each experimental group also received specific materials unique to their respective treatment. During each of the three training sessions the subjects in the Question-Answer treatment received a series of short-answer questions covering each of the assigned excerpts. These questions were similar in style and format to the type of questions that teachers pose in classroom discussions or textbook authors include at the end of their chapters (Langer, 1986; Newell, 1984). There were 10 questions pertaining to the first excerpt, 15 for the second excerpt, and 22 for the third excerpt. Figure 2 illustrates a sample of the 22 questions that were asked of the Question-Answer subjects for the criterion excerpt on "Remembering and Forgetting." The questions expected students to (a) define, give characteristics or exemplify (12 questions); (b) provide explanations (5 questions); (c) perceive the superstructure of the text (3 questions); and (d) apply information to new contexts (2 questions). The questions were then typed on the left hand side of a page with a vertical line drawn down the middle to separate the questions from the answer column which was to be filled in later by the subjects. This format was chosen to facilitate student self-recitation. The subjects in the PORPE treatment received a different set of materials. After they had read the assigned excerpts, the researcher/instructor distributed a packet of materials which included a description of the PORPE procedure and a guided

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outline designed to help the students operationalize each of the five steps. The students recorded their predicted essay questions, their outlines or maps, and their practice essays in these packets. Assessment instruments. Assessment instruments included a passage-specific knowledge pretest and three posttests, the third one being the criterion exam contributing to the data analyses. The students' passage-specific knowledge of the third excerpt on "Remembering and Forgetting" was pretested and measured using procedures drawn from Langer's work (1980, 1984). Immediately preceding the distribution of the third excerpt, the subjects in the study were asked to write any associations or knowledge they already possessed about the key ideas of remembering and forgetting. These word associations were then independently classified by two raters into the three categories suggested by Langer (1984): (a) diffuse, associative responses reflecting little understanding of the concept; (b) concrete, functional responses; and (c) incorporation of abstract, superordinate principles. The interrater reliability for the passage specific knowledge scores obtained from the raters was .91. The three experimenter-designed posttests were designed to reflect the format of exams administered by a professor in a typical introductory psychology course. Thus, each exam contained both multiple choice items and essay questions. The third exam, the criterion exam which contributed to the data set for the dependent variable, contained 20 multiple choice items and two essay questions, each worth 10 points, making a total of 40 possible points. All three exams contained approximately 60% memory level questions and 40% higher level questions (either interpretive or applicative). The exam on the third and criterion excerpt had been previously piloted with 100 similar subjects enrolled in one of the two universities' developmental studies reading programs. The Kuder Richardson Formula 20 provided a reliability coefficient of .79 for this exam. In addition, to establish a form of validity this exam was analyzed by a college professor who taught Introduction to Psychology courses and a doctoral student in educational psychology. Both individually judged it to be representative of the types of key concepts that they would ask of students about the topics of remembering and forgetting. Procedures The study involved five phases: reading, training, studying, testing, and delayed testing. The training time was kept equivalent for the experimental and control groups. All four classes were informed by their instructors that for the upcoming weeks they would be learning how to prepare for college level exams. In order to control for instructor effect, only one researcher was involved in the actual training of the four classes. The subjects were also informed that the assigned work and the exams during this training period would count on their course grade. The first phase of the study involved the distribution of the psychology excerpts, one per

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week, three days before the scheduled training session. Each week the instructor distributed an excerpt and asked the students to read and underline/mark the material. The subjects were informed that this assignment would be collected, graded, and returned to them on the day of the training. Before the subjects received the third and criterion psychology excerpt, they were administered the prior knowledge recall measure. The second phase of the study involved the training of the students in either the PORPE strategy or the Question-Answer strategy. Each of the three training sessions lasted 60 minutes, for a total of 180 minutes of direct instruction. With both the experimental and control groups, the researcher introduced the first recommended step for exam preparation—annotation. To illustrate how to annotate, the researcher distributed to each subject an annotated version of the psychology excerpts and modeled the processes she had used as she read and marked the text's key ideas. She asked the students to compare her annotated copy to their own copy and then to ask questions about either the content or the annotations. At this point the training differed for the experimental and control groups. The Question-Answer groups were informed that the second step for effective exam preparation was to answer, in their own words, questions over the chapter's key ideas. They were also told that these questions and answers needed to be organized in a format that permitted self-recitation, the third step of effective exam preparation. The researcher then distributed the prepared questions and asked the subjects to use the excerpts (either theirs or the annotated model) to answer the questions in their own words. As the subjects worked on answering the questions, the researcher circulated around the room to assist with the process. During the second part of the direct instruction, the researcher led a group discussion of the questions and answers to insure that the subjects understood the key ideas and that their written answers were correct and complete. The researcher then instructed the subjects on how to implement the third step of exam preparation, self-recitation, using the split question-answer format. The researcher closed the training session by assigning the students to use the next two days for self-recitation as a means of study for the test on the assigned excerpt. Before the students left the session, the researcher collected from each student both chapter excerpts in order to insure that none of them would practice another method of study such as multiple rereading. The PORPE groups were told that the second step for effective exam preparation was to operationalize the steps of the PORPE procedure. With the use of a handout, the researcher outlined the five steps of PORPE and then guided the subjects through each of the steps on the assigned psychology excerpt. Using the packets that they had received earlier, the students were first asked to predict two possible essay questions on the general topic and to write them down. Next the researcher led a discussion of these predicted questions in order to assist the students in their selection of one or two possible essay questions to serve as the focus to their subsequent study. Students were also reminded that the upcoming test was not solely an essay test, and so the predicting, organizing, and writing would not only

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help them do well on the essay question(s), but it would also help them on the multiple choice test questions. Through class discussion, the researcher then led the students into organizing personal outlines or maps of the passage's key ideas and details that should be included in their predicted essay questions. The students recorded their outlines or maps in their packets. They were then asked to write, in essay form, the answers to the predicted questions in order to rehearse the important ideas of the excerpt. After the students independently wrote for 10 to 15 minutes, the researcher asked them to orally share their written essays with the rest of the class. Following a discussion on the quality of the answers using the checklist provided in the fifth step of PORPE, the subjects were instructed to study for the upcoming test by completing the last two steps of PORPE—to practice without looking at the prepared outline or map and to evaluate by using the checklist. The researcher reminded them that the test would be in two days and then collected the two chapter excerpts (annotated and their own copy) so that their only means of study would be the packet which contained the steps of PORPE, the predicted questions, the outlines/maps, the practice essays they had prepared in class and the checklist. The third phase of the study, the studying phase, occurred outside the classroom. Students were assigned to use their question-and-answer study sheet or their PORPE materials to prepare for each of the three exams. They were also informed that they would have to hand in their questions and answers or PORPE materials to the instructor on the day of the exam. The fourth phase of the study, the essay and objective test, took place in class 48 hours after the experimental and control groups had studied their materials at home. Both the experimental and control sections took the same exams on the three psychology excerpts—multiple choice and essay tests which equally emphasized recognition and recall. While the first two exams were intended only to simulate the criterion testing condition for the third exam over "Remembering and Forgetting," the scores were recorded as course grades for all the subjects. Subjects who had missed one of the training sessions and/or one of the exams were eventually dropped from the data analyses. On the day of the immediate criterion examination on "Remembering and Forgetting," the subjects were given 10 minutes of study time, though this was not previously announced to them. They were told to either test themselves on the Questions-Answers or to study their prepared essays. After the study period in each class, the students were handed the two essay questions which asked them to discuss the processes involved in remembering and to discuss the two theories of forgetting. Once the two essays were completed and submitted to the instructor, students were given a 20-item multiple choice test. The essay questions preceded the objective part of the exam so that ideas embedded in the objective test would not prompt the students' recall on the essay exam. Four days following the exam, the students received a printout indicating their score out of 40 possible points and their two subtotals for the essay and the objective sections of the exam.

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The fifth phase of the study, the delayed testing, took place in a class session two weeks later. The students were encouraged to do their best for this unannounced retesting and were promised extra credit for any points they scored above their last test score. Scoring Scoring procedures are described for the multiple choice test and then for the essays. The recognition or multiple choice exam was scored per question as having either a correct or incorrect response. There was a possible total of 20 points. The two essays for both testings (immediate and unannounced delayed) were first dichotomously and then holistically scored by two trained raters who were unaware of the treatment condition and testing period for any of the essays. This dichotomous scoring procedure was meant to correspond to the procedure that a content area teacher generally employs when grading essay exams. In order to operationalize this type of scoring, a dichotomous scale (Cooper & Odell, 1977) was developed (see Appendix). The two raters independently scored both the initial and delayed essays, crediting each correctly recalled idea with one point. The initial interrater reliability was .89. Any essays with differences in the point totals were then reread so that unanimous agreement was possible. A second scoring was a holistic assessment (Cooper, 1977; Odell, 1977; Myers, 1980, 1985) of three features for each essay: content, organization/coherence, and cohesion. Each feature was scored on a 4-point scale, with 4 being the highest score. A rating of 0, however, was given on content if an essay failed to respond to the assignment; the scoring then ended for that essay with organization/coherence and cohesion also receiving a 0 rating. A rating of 0 was also given on organization/ coherence and cohesion if an essay merely listed information in phrases or unrelated, non-paragraphed sentences. (See "Holistic Scoring Rubric: Scoring Distinctions" and "Sample Anchor Essays" in the Appendix.) The subjects received a subscore on each of the three features and a total holistic score, which was the sum of the three subscores. Scores for each feature and a total holistic score were then summed (Myers, 1980) across the two independent raters to produce a scale ranging from 0 to 8 for each feature, from 0 to 24 for an essay's total holistic score, and from 0 to 48 for both essays. A Pearson Product Moment correlation revealed an interrater reliability of .93 for the overall holistic scoring. Interrater reliabilities for the feature subscores were also acceptable (Diederich, 1974): .97 for content; .85 for organization/coherence; and .83 for cohesion.

RESULTS The results presented for the objective test scores and for the two different scorings (i.e., dichotomous and holistic) of the essay answers are based on the

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subjects' reading of "Remembering and Forgetting" and their subsequent performance on the two measures after a 48-hour interval and a 2-week unannounced delay. The method of analysis was a factorial design using an analysis of covariance for each dependent variable. Effect sizes (d) were computed by dividing the difference between means by the square root of the MSW for a given test (Glass & Hopkins, 1984). Because the subjects in this study were enrolled in intact classes at two different universities, the first question addressed by this study was whether there were initial differences among the four groups. To investigate this question, the Scholastic Aptitude Test Verbal scores were collected for all subjects and then subjected to a one-way analysis of variance. No significant differences were found in the SATV scores across the four intact classes, F(3,64) = 1.62, p = . 195. When the four intact classes were collapsed into the two different treatment groups, the mean SATV for the PORPE treatment groups was 327 points and for the Question-Answer groups 340 points. A prior-knowledge, passage-specific test (Langer, 1980, 1984) further substantiated the hypothesis that the four intact groups were similar. In this case, the results of the analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences in the students' prior knowledge about the topic of remembering and forgetting, F(3,64) = .2745, p = . 8435. Each of the three research questions will be discussed separately. Objective Test (Immediate and Delayed) The first research question asked whether there would be a difference between the PORPE group and the Question-Answer group on the objective test in the initial and delayed conditions. With the SATV score used as the covariate, the adjusted means for the two groups on the immediate and delayed tests are presented in Table 1. The analysis of covariance revealed a significant treatment main effect for the immediate test [F(l,60)= 13.69, p = .001, (d=.92)] and the delayed test [F(l,60)= 11.49, p = .001, {d = .847)]. For both outcomes the PORPE treatment resulted in higher achievement by the students. The tests for an interaction between school and treatment were nonsignificant, [F(l,60) = .98, p = .325] and [F(l ,60) = 1.416, p = .239], for the immediate and delayed tests respectively. Essay Exam: Dichotomous Scoring (Immediate and Delayed) The second research question asked whether there would be a difference between the scores of the PORPE group and the Question-Answer group on the dichotomously scored essay exams. With the SATV scores used as the covariate, the adjusted means for two groups on the immediate and delayed tests are presented in Table 2. The analysis of covariance revealed a significant main effect for the

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Table 1 Adjusted Group Means and Standard Deviations for the Multiple Choice Test (Initial and Delayed) Group PORPE: Group 1 initial testing* delayed testing3 PORPE: Group 2 initial testing* delayed testing8 Question-Answer: Group 1 initial testing" delayed testing* Question-Answer: Group 2 initial testing" delayed testing*

M

SD

15.0 14.79

2.20 2.11

17.12 14.49

2.21 2.01

12.87 11.19

3.46 2.24

13.59 11.50

2.37 2.31

"Maximum possible score = 20.

Table 2 Adjusted Group Means and Standard Deviations for the Dichotomously Scored Essay Test (Initial and Delayed) Group PORPE: Group 1 initial testing3 delayed testing* PORPE: Group 2 initial testing* delayed testing* Question-Answer: Group 1 initial testing* delayed testing* Question-Answer: Group 2 initial testing* delayed testing3 "Maximum possible score=20.

M

SD

16.82 5.03

2.7 1.1

14.6 4.36

2.61 1.31

5.2 1.94

3.76 .56

5.53 1.60

3.39 .63

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PORPE treatment on the immediate test [F(l ,60) = 167.82, p = .0001, (d = 3.241)] and the delayed test [F(l,60) = 19.8117, p = .0001, (d= 1.113)]. The tests for an interaction between school and treatment were nonsignificant, [F(l,60) = 1.416, p = .239] and [F( 1,60) = .06614, p = .798], for the immediate and delayed tests respectively. Essay Exam: Holistic Scoring (Immediate and Delayed) The third research question asked whether there would be a difference between the PORPE group and the Question-Answer group on the essay exam, which was holistically scored. Specifically, four features were analyzed: (a) a total holistic score, (b) a content subscore, (c) an organization subscore, and (d) a cohesion subscore. With the SATV score used as the covariate, the adjusted means for the PORPE and Question-Answer treatment groups on each of the four essay scores for the immediate and delayed tests are reported in Tables 3 and 4. The results for the analysis of covariance indicated a significant treatment main effect on the immediate tests for the total holistic scores [F(l,60) = 99.99, p = .0001, (d = 2.50)], for the content subscores [F(l ,60)= 131.34, p = .00001, (d = 2.867)], for the organization subscores [F(l,60) = 92.08,/> = .0001, (d = 2.40)], and for the cohesion subscores [F(l,60) = 45.64, p = .0001, (d= 1.690)]. For each of these outcomes the PORPE group scored significantly higher than the Question-Answer group. On the delayed tests similar results were obtained, with the PORPE group scoring significantly higher for the total holistic scores [F(l,60)= 13.59, /> = .OOO5, (d = .92)], the content subscores [F(l,60) = 14.76, p = .0003, (d= .961)], the organization subscore [F(l,60)= 10.31, p - .002, {d = .932)], and the cohesion subscore [F( 1,60) = 9.61, p = .0029, (d = .775)]. None of the tests for the interaction Table 3 Adjusted Group Means and Standard Deviations for Holistic Scoring of Initial Essays

Group PORPE Group 1 Group 2 Question-Answer Group 1 Group 2

Total M (SD)

Cohesion

M(SD)

36.76 (2.02)a 34.98(1.87)

12.47 (,72)b 13.25 (.66)

12.54 (.69)b 10.72 (.64)

11.73 (.79)b 11.02 (.73)

16.36 (1.93)a 16.82(1.90)

5.24 (.68)b 4.74 (.67)

4.87 (.66)b 5.62 (.65)

6.11 (.75)b 6.46 (.74)

"Maximum possible score = 48. Maximum possible score = 16.

b

Holistic Criteria Organization Content M (SD) M(SD)

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Table 4 Adjusted Group Means and Standard Deviations for Holistic Scoring of Delayed Essays Holistic Criteria Content Organization

Cohesion

M{SD)

M(SD)

M(SD)

M{SD)

15.91 (2.14)a 13.63 (1.98)

4.13 (.57)b 3.70 (.53)

5.38 (.77)b 4.39 (.71)

6.42 (.93)b 5.46 (.86)

9.26 (2.05)a 5.20 (2.01)

2.26 (.54)" 1.4 (.53)

3.53 (.73)b 1.52 (.72)

4.09 (.89)b 2.25 (.88)

Total

Group PORPE Group 1 Group 2 Question-Answer Group 1 Group 2

" Maximum possible score=48. b Maximum possible score =16.

between school and treatment was statistically significant. The computed F ratios for those eight tests ranged between 0.17 and 3.80, and their respective probability values ranged between 0.056 and 0.681.

DISCUSSION The results of this study suggest very strongly that PORPE can be an effective independent learning strategy for college students. In this research study. 1. The PORPE group out-performed the Question-Answer group on the initial and delayed multiple choice examinations on the excerpt entitled "Remembering and Forgetting." 2. The PORPE group out-performed the Question-Answer group on the initial and delayed essay examinations when dichotomously scored. 3. The PORPE group out-performed the Question-Answer group on the initial and delayed essay examinations when holistically scored for content, organization, and cohesion. 4. No interactions between treatment and school were detected. Previous research studies would have suggested that the PORPE group would significantly outperform the Question-Answer group on the initial and delayed essays when scored dichotomously. For instance, the summarization studies by King, Biggs, and Lipsky (1984) and Dansereau et al. (1974) found that students who summarized passages received higher essay test scores than the control subjects. With the current study the subjects in the PORPE group were involved in a

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comprehensive writing and study strategy. The subjects in the control group wrote answers to teacher-developed study questions, an activity weak in the integrative and reasoning processes necessary for effective meaning making (Langer, 1986; Newell, 1984). Hence, one would expect the essays of the PORPE group to be significantly better in content. As mentioned earlier, one of the major flaws of the summarization studies has been their inability to demonstrate consistently that the writing process can make a difference in students' performance on objective exams. In this study, however, the writing and the four other steps of PORPE collectively influenced the experimental group to perform significantly better than the control on both the immediate and delayed unannounced multiple choice exams. Considering that the control group directly practiced all of the key concepts in the provided study questions, this finding becomes even more encouraging. The PORPE procedure seemed to benefit these particular college students to the point that the information about remembering and forgetting was incorporated into their long-term memory to a greater degree than for their peers in the Question-Answer group. One plausible explanation for the potency of PORPE upon immediate and delayed recognition tasks may be that the learner-oriented essays which the students produced and evaluated during the five-step sequence of PORPE may have required more elaborative processing, and thus, more depth of processing (Anderson & Reder, 1979; Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982). As Bradshaw and Anderson (1982) have explained, there are two basic ways that more elaborative encoding can lead to better memory—network redundancy and inferential redundancy. The elaborations the PORPE students created via their self-predicted essay questions, maps, and written essays may have created redundant and alternative routes for recall, routes helpful in testing situations should the more direct ones fail. Inferential redundancy, the second way in which elaborative processing can aid memory, may have also occurred for the PORPE students during the immediate and delayed testing situations. The elaborations the students created while employing the steps of PORPE may have led to a significantly better long-term memory because they had enough redundant and alternative retrieval routes to help them infer what they no longer remembered. Even though the PORPE students may not have been able to encode the original propositions or key ideas contained in their maps and essays, their elaborations facilitated inferential thought and reasoning. On the other hand, the students who answered the study questions, even though the key concepts matched the criterion exam, may not have generated enough useful or alternative elaborations about the assigned text and hence, did not remember as much. The synergistic steps of PORPE which seemed to promote more elaborative processing are similar to Palinscar and Brown's (1983) self-reciprocal teaching package which trains students to predict, clarify, question, and summarize. Palinscar and Brown have found that the students trained in their package of metacognitive activities significantly improved on their daily comprehension tests and that this

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effect was durable up to an eight-week period. The durability and potency of PORPE and self-reciprocal teaching may be embedded in their packaging of a repertoire of encoding and self-regulatory processes which provides students strategies which build upon each other for successful independent learning. The PORPE group also performed significantly better on the essays when holistically scored. The two independent raters consistently scored the PORPE essays as being superior to the Question-Answer essays in terms of content, organization, and cohesion. As previously noted, virtually all of the research studies that have trained students to use writing as a learning strategy have ignored these important qualitative measures that can mirror a student's thinking. At the risk of presenting a synergistic process as a sequence of discrete and loosely related parts, the researchers, nonetheless, offer three explanations which attempt to explain why the essays of the PORPE group were better organized and more cohesive. These three hypotheses, though not mutually exclusive, will address the organizing, practicing (i.e., writing), and evaluating done in PORPE. First of all, the second step of PORPE, Organizing via a map or outline, may have had an effect on the students' thinking and subsequent writing, especially since the organization was learner-oriented as opposed to audience-oriented (Hidi & Anderson, 1986). When the students used PORPE, they organized information into maps or outlines which they thought would answer their self-predicted questions. They then used these maps or outlines to plan their essay writing. Hence, the maps forced the students into forging logical and understandable connections between previously disparate bits of information. Other researchers who have trained students to map before they write have found similar results in that student summaries have been significantly superior (Steenwyk, Bean, & Inabinette, 1985; Weisberg & Balajthy, 1985). A second explanation has to do with the Practice step of PORPE, that is, with the unique processes that the act of writing generates. To come back to Vygotsky's (1962) important distinctions between inner speech and written speech, the students in the PORPE treatment group relied heavily on written speech, whereas students in the Question-Answer group relied somewhat on written speech and somewhat on inner speech or self-recitation in their studying and preparation. As Vygotsky pointed out, written speech, unlike inner speech, "must explain [a] situation fully in order to be intelligible. The change from maximally compact inner speech to maximally detailed written speech requires what might be called deliberate semantics— deliberate structuring of the web of meaning" (p. 100). Because effective writing demands a deliberate ordering and relating of words in syntactic sequence, writing encourages a more conscious attempt on the part of the writer to see—in fact to create—meaningful connections among the words and their corresponding meanings in sentences and paragraphs than does silent thinking, or inner speech. Berthoff (1981) stresses this discursive nature of language, arguing that "language's tendency to be syntactical brings thought along with it" (p. 38). If indeed the act of

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composing in written language forges a more coherent meaning than would be possible through inner speech or silent thought, it should not be surprising that evidence of such a coherent "structure of the web of meaning" would show up in the analyses of coherence and cohesion in the essays written by the PORPE students. In short, writing whole pieces of discourse may very well demand a deeper level of thinking and a more expansive engagement with a subject than responding in writing to given questions. While the deeper and more elaborate levels of thinking would show up in a high score for content, the more expansive engagement would be reflected in an essay's structure of ideas on both the global (macrostructural) and local (syntactic) levels. A final possible explanation for the PORPE group's superior organization and cohesion subscores on the essays is related to the fifth step of PORPE, Evaluating. The students trained in PORPE were provided a checklist that they were to use in evaluating their written essay answers to the predicted questions. This checklist required the students to reread their essays with five questions in mind. By rereading their essays students were able to evaluate their answers as a teacher would. In turn, this rereading and evaluating probably led many students to do some much needed rewriting and editing in their study time before the initial exam. Thus, their final products, the two essays written at two different occasions, were superior to the Question-Answer group's essays in terms of content, organization, and cohesion.

CONCLUSION While the PORPE procedure seems especially promising as an independent learning strategy, there were some limitations to this study that should be noted. First of all, the results were based on just one passage from one content area, psychology. Future research should be conducted with multiple passages from different content areas. A second limitation of this study was that the performance of the PORPE group was compared to the performance of another group that was not trained in such a comprehensive package of encoding and self-regulatory processes. Even though it is tempting to say that a Porsche will always out-perform a Chevette, the initial test must be empirically conducted. This research study was the initial test. Thus, future researchers might wish to compare the PORPE procedure to another independent learning strategy that would also have the potential of involving the students in a comprehensive and synergistic package of activities. Care should be taken, however, to avoid research which attempts to identify the superior study strategy. Instead of comparing study strategies such as PORPE to summarization, a more profitable line of research would examine whether students can be trained to select, control, and transfer strategies such as PORPE to their independent learning. In summary, this study strongly suggests that PORPE can be a viable strategy

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for stimulating students into synthesizing, analyzing, and thinking about key concepts. The results of this study would seem to have important implications for secondary and postsecondary teachers in text-centered courses. Requiring students to answer study-guide or text-provided questions may initially appear to be productive in terms of time and student/teacher effort, but writing tasks such as those organized in PORPE are more durable and potent for students in their efforts to learn content area concepts. For instance, in this study the average student in the PORPE group excelled (an " A " or " B " ) on the exam while the average student in the Question-Answer group failed or nearly failed ( " D " or " F " ) . Even more important to classroom teachers is the fact that all of the college students in this study were once categorized as high-risk high school students who had demonstrated little or no knowledge about efficient and effective strategies for independent learning. It would appear, then, that secondary and postsecondary reading specialists along with their colleagues in the content areas have a practical and powerful writing/reading/learning strategy in PORPE to share with students attempting to master course content.

REFERENCES Anderson, J. R., & Reder, L. M. (1979). Levels of processing in human memory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Anderson, R. C., Reynolds, R. E., Schallert, D. L., & Goetz, E. T. (1977). Frameworks for comprehending discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 14(4), 367-382. Anderson, T. H. (1978). Study skills and learning strategies (Tech. Report No. 4). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading. Anderson, T. H., & Armbruster, B. B. (1984). Studying. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 657-679). New York: Longman. Applebee, A. N. (1984). Writing and reasoning. Review of Educational Research, 54(4), 577-596. Armbruster, B. B. (1979). An investigation of the effectiveness of "mapping" text as a studying strategy for middle school students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois. Baker, L., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Metacognitive skills and reading. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 353-394). New York: Longman. Bamberg, B. (1983). What makes a text coherent? College Composition and Communication, 34, 417— 429. Berthoff, A. E. (1981). The making of meaning. Montclair, NJ: Boynton Cook. Berthoff, A. E. (1982). Forming thinking writing: The composing imagination. Montclair, NJ: Boynton Cook. Bradshaw, G. L., & Anderson, J. R. (1982). Elaborative encoding as an explanation of levels of processing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21, 165-174. Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. New York: Penguin. Brown, A. L., Bransford, J. D., Ferrara, R . A . , & Campione, J. C. (1982). Learning, remembering, and understanding (Tech. Report No. 244). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading. Brown, A. L., & Day, J. D. (1983). Macrorules for summarizing texts: The development of expertise. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 1-14.

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Brown, A. L., Day, J. D., & Jones, R. S. (1983). The development of plans for summarizing texts. Child Development, 54, 968-979. Brozo, W. G., Stahl, N. A., & Gordon, B. (1985). Training effects of summarizing, item writing, and knowledge of information sources on reading test performance. In J. A. Niles & R. V. Lalik (Eds.), Issues in Literacy: A Research Perspective—34th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 48-54). Rochester. National Reading Conference. Coe, R. M. (1987). An apology for form; or who took the form out of the process? College English, 49, 13-28. Cook, L. K., & Mayer, R. E. (1983). Reading strategies training for meaningful learning from prose. In M. Pressley & J. R. Levin (Eds.), Cognitive strategy research: Educational applications (pp. 8 7 131). New York: Springer-Verlag. Cooper, C. R. (1977). Holistic evaluation of writing. In C. R. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.), Evaluating writing: Describing, measuring, judging (pp. 3-31). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Dansereau, D. F. (1979). Development and evaluation of a learning strategy training program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 64-73. Dansereau, D. F., Collins, K. W., McDonald, B. A., Holley, C. D., Garland, J., Diekhoff, G. M., & Evans, S. H. (1979). Evaluation of a learning strategy system. In H. F. O'Neill & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Cognitive and effective learning strategies. New York: Academic Press. Dansereau, D. F., McDonald, B. A., Long, G. L., Atkinson, T. R., Ellis, A. M., Collins, K. W., Williams, S., & Evans, S. H. (1974). The development and assessment of an effective learning strategy program (Rep. No. 3). Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University. Diederich, P. B. (1974). Measuring growth in English. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Doctorow, M., Wittrock, M. C., & Marks, C. (1978). Generative processes in reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 109-118. Dowst, K. (1980). The epistemic approach: Writing, knowing and learning. In T. R. Donovan & B. W. McClelland (Eds.), Eight approaches to teaching composition (pp. 65-85). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Emig, J. (1977). Writing as a mode of learning. College Composition and Communication, 28, 122— 128. Fahnestock, J. (1983). Semantic and lexical coherence. College Composition and Communication, 34, 400-416. Frase, L. T., & Schwartz, B. J. (1975). Effect of question production and answering on prose recall. Journal of Educational Psychology, 65(5), 628-635. Gagnè, E. D. (1978). Long-term retention of information following learning from prose. Review of Educational Research, 48, 629-665. Gamer, R. (1982). Efficient text summarization: Costs and benefits. Journal of Educational Research, 75, 275-279. Glass, G. V., & Hopkins, K. D. (1984). Statistical methods in education and psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hare, V. C., & Borchardt, K. M. (1984). Direct instruction of summarization skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 20(1), 62-78. Hidi, S., & Anderson, V. (1986). Producing written summaries: Task demands, cognitive operations and implications for instruction. Review of Educational Research, 56(4), 473-493. Hori, A. K. O. (1977). An investigation of the efficacy of a questioning training procedure on increasing the reading comprehension of junior high school learning-disabled students. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Kansas.

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Jenkins, J. J. (1979). Four points to remember: A tetrahedral model and memory experiments. In L. S. Cermak & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Levels and processing in human memory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Johnson, N. S. (1982). What do you do if you can't tell the whole story? The development of summarization skills. In K. E. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language (Vol. 5). New York: Gardner. King, J. R., Biggs, S., & Lipsky, S. (1984). Students' self-questioning and summarizing as reading study strategies. Journal of Reading Behavior, 16(3), 205-218. Lahey, B. B. (1983). Psychology: An introduction. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown. Langer, J. A. (1980). Relation between levels of prior knowledge and the organization of recall. In M. L. Kamil & A. J. Moe (Eds.), Perspectives in Reading Research and Instruction—29th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 28-32). Washington, DC: National Reading Conference. Langer, J. A. (1982). Facilitating text processing: The elaboration of prior knowledge. In J. A. Langer & M. Smith-Burke (Eds.), Reader meets author/bridging the gap: A psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspective (pp. 149-162). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Langer, J. A. (1984). The effects of available information on responses to school writing tasks. Research in the Teaching of English, 18(1), 27-44. Langer, J. A. (1986). Learning through writing: Study skills in the content areas. Journal of Reading, 29(5), 400-406. Linden, M., &Wittrock, M. C. (1981). The teaching of reading comprehension according to the model of generative learning. Reading Research Quarterly, 17(1), 44-57. Lloyd-Jones, R. (1977). Primary trait scoring. In C. R. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.), Evaluating writing: Describing, measuring, judging (pp. 33-66). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Myers, M. (1980). A procedure for writing assessment and holistic scoring. Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills and the National Council of Teachers of English. Myers, M. (1985). The teacher-researcher: How to study writing in the classroom. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. National Assessment of Educational Progress. (1981). Reading, thinking and writing. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States. Newell, G. E. (1984). Learning from writing in two content areas: A case study/protocol analysis. Research in the Teaching of English, 18(3), 265-285. Odell, L. (1977). Measuring changes in intellectual processes as one dimension of growth in writing. In C. R. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.), Evaluating writing: Describing, measuring, judging (pp. 107132). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1983, January). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-monitoring activities (Technical Report No. 269). Champaign, IL: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 225 135). Petrosky, A. J. (1982). From story to essay: Reading and writing. College Composition and Communica-

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Sadker, M., & Cooper, J. (1974). Increasing student higher-order questions. Elementary English, 51, 502-507. Simpson, M. (1986). PORPE: A writing strategy for studying and learning in the content areas. Journal of Reading, 29(5), 407-414. Smith, F. (1982). Writing and the writer. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Smith, H. K. (1967). The responses of good and poor readers when asked to read for different purposes. Reading Research Quarterly, 3, 53-83. Smith, N. I. (1977). The effects of training teachers to teach students at different reading ability to formulate three types of questions on reading comprehension and question generation ability. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia. Snow, R. W. (1974). Representative and quasi-representative designs for research on teaching. Review of Educational Research, 44, 265-290. Steenwyk, F. L., Bean, T. W., & Inabinette, N. (1985, December). Summarization instruction: The effect of the rule-governed, GIST, and hierarchical mapping strategies on students' summary writing and reading comprehension. Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, San Diego, CA. Stotsky, S. (1983). Research on reading/writing relationships: A synthesis and suggested directions. Language Arts, 60, 627-642. Stotsky, S. (1986). On learning to write about ideas. College Composition and Communication, 37, 276-293. Tierney, R. J., LaZansky, J., & Schallert, D. (1982). Secondary students' use of social studies and biology text. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois. Tiemey, R. J., & Pearson, P. D. (1983). Toward a composing model of reading. Language Arts, 60, 568-580. van Dijk, T. A. (1980). Macrostructures. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Vygotsky, L. V. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Weinstein, C. E., & Mayer, R. E. (1986). The teaching of learning strategies. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 315-327). New York: MacMillan. Weisberg, R. K., & Balajthy, E. (1985, December). Effects of semantic mapping training on disabled readers' summarization and recognition of expository text structure. Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, San Diego, CA. Weiss, R. H., & Walters, S. A. (1980). Writing to learn. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 191 056). Winograd, P. N. (1984). Strategic difficulties in summarizing texts. Reading Research Quarterly, 19(4), 404-425. Winterowd, W. R. (1975). The grammar of coherence. In W. R. Winterowd (Ed.), Contemporary rhetoric: Conceptual background with readings (pp. 225-233). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Witte, S. P., & Faigley, L. (1981). Coherence, cohesion, and writing quality. College Composition and Communication, 32, 189-204. Wittrock, M. C. (1983). Writing and the teaching of reading. Language Arts, 60(5), 600-606. Wong, B. Y. L. (1985). Self-questioning instructional research: A review. Review of Educational Research, 55(2), 227-268.

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APPENDIX Dichotomous Scoring Rubric Question 1: Discuss the processes involved in remembering. POINTS

(A check in the margin indicates a "Yes"; a blank indicates a "No.") 1. The writer correctly defines "recognition'' (identifying or selecting the correct answer from alternatives or clues). [1 point] 2. The writer provides a correct example of recognition (e.g., multiple choice, true-false). [1 point] 3. The writer correctly characterizes "recognition" as (one of the following): a) is usually easier or b) usually produces more information or c) has received less research than has recall or d) is more difficult than recall in cases of spelling, difficult multiple choice, or choosing among many alternatives. [1 point] 4. The writer correctly defines "recall" (i.e., one produces a response without clues or remembers something "out of the blue" with no hints). [1 point] 5. The writer provides a correct example of recall (e.g., essay exams, short answer tests, or labeling tasks). [1 point] 6. The writer correctly characterizes "recall" as (one of the following): a) is usually harder except for spelling, difficult multiple choice tasks, or choosing among many alternatives or b) has been studied more than recognition or c) consists of different types, such as visual, motor or eidetic or d) is divided into motor recall (which involves continuous motor skills, which are never forgotten, such as driving a car) and discrete motor skills (which are easily forgotten). [1 point] 7. The writer defines "redintegration" as reconstructing the past in detail (the experience almost always being a past personal experience). [1 point] OR The writer characterizes "redintegration" as being vivid or distorted or a combination of fact plus fiction. [1 point] OR 8. The writer defines "relearning" as learning something the second time with more ease. [1 point] OR The writer provides an example of relearning (e.g., relearning a foreign language or relearning a poem that one once memorized) [1 point] NOTE: The writer may receive 2 points for number 7 or 2 points for number 8 or 1 point for number 7 and 1 point for number 8, but may not receive more than 2 points total for numbers 7 and 8:

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The writer defines 4 types of "almost remembering" as: a) "omission behavior" (i.e., not reporting a response one sort of recalls because one is not sure of the correctness of the response) b) "error recognition" (i.e., internally dismissing one's own wrong answers before one receives any outside information or feedback) c) "tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon" (i.e., one knows the answer but cannot produce the information, even though one has clues) d) "feeling of knowing" (i.e., one is pretty sure of one's answers of recall). [4 defined = 2 points; 3, 2, or 1 defined = 1 point; 4 listed but not defined = 0 points] TOTAL POINTS.

Dichotomous Scoring Rubric Question 2: Discuss the two general theories of why we forget. POINTS

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(A check in the margin indicates a "Yes"; a blank indicates a "No.") 1. The writer lists and defines "trace decay theory" as: a) Memory will fade away if not used occasionally. [1 point] b) The theory assumes that some chemicals are involved in the process. [1 point] 2. The writer characterizes trace decay theory in at least one of the following ways: a) The theory has little support because continuous motor skills can be remembered after long periods of time or b) The theory has little support because childhood memories can be recalled after long periods of time. [1 point] 3. The writer states that the trace decay theory does explain short-term motor forgetting. [1 point] 4. The writer lists and defines "interference" or "inhibition" as forgetting that occurs because of blocking or competition in our minds; thus, some things are remembered, others forgotten. [2 points] 5. The writer lists and defines "retroactive inhibition" as a kind of interference whereby new information makes one forget the old information learned earlier. [1 point] 6. The writer lists and defines "proactive inhibition" as one kind of interference whereby the original or old learning impedes the learning of new material. [1 point] 7. The writer lists and defines "repression" as a kind of interference whereby one forgets past events because remembering those events causes anxiety. [1 point]

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8. The writer gives at least one example or one characteristic of the kinds of interference (e.g., repression is a type of retroactive inhibition or repression is a theory of Freud's or everyone represses at some time). [1 point] TOTAL POINTS .

Holistic Scoring Rubric: General Guidelines I. CONTENT [4 points] A. The essay responds to the assigned topic. B. The essay contains complete information (breadth). 1. Terms and concepts are listed. 2. Terms and concepts are defined. C. The essay contains well-supported information (depth). 1. Terms and concepts are defined. 2. Terms and concepts are described. 3. Terms and concepts are exemplified. D. The essay contains accurate and relevant information. 1. Information is relevant to the assigned topic. 2. Terms and concepts are accurately defined and described. 3. Examples are appropriate and relevant. E. Assign a score of " 0 " to an essay if: 1. The essay does not respond to the topic, at which point the holistic analysis ends. 2. The essay responds to the topic, but its content merely refers to one or two terms or theories and if the essay fails to give any explanation or exemplification of the terms or theories and thereby shows no understanding of the content. II. ORGANIZATION AND COHERENCE [4 points] F. The essay has an introduction (a single sentence or a full paragraph). G. The essay has a controlling idea (the topic to be discussed in the remainder of the essay). H. The essay has a body. 1. The essay need not have separate paragraphs to receive scores of " 3 " and lower. 2. The superior essays will be logically paragraphed. I. The essay has a conclusion (a single sentence or paragraph). J. The essay deals with separate processes or concepts in separate paragraphs. K. Sentences are arranged in a logical order, one sentence leading logically and purposefully into the next. L. The essay does not present irrelevant information that derails an established flow of text. M. An essay receives a score of " 0 " if it essentially only lists information in a disconnected form.

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N. An essay receives a score of " 1" if it contains more than one sentence to introduce the topic but then goes on to list information. HI. SENTENCE-LEVEL CLARITY AND COHESION [4 points] O. Sentences are syntactically clear (i.e., meaning is not distorted or ambiguous because of syntactic errors such as unintentional fragments, mixed constructions, or run-together sentences). P. The diction is unambiguous and accurate, even if not exact. Q. Words, if omitted, do not distort or create ambiguous meanings. R. The essay has transitions (words, phrases, clauses) that link ideas, subtopics, or paragraphs, including the following kinds of semantic ties: 1. Coordination (and, furthermore, also) 2. Obversativity (but, however) 3. Causativity (so, therefore, thus) 4. Conclusivity (so, therefore, thus) 5. Alternativity (or) 6. Inclusivity or Exemplification (for example, use of the colon) 7. Sequential relationship (first, second, next, earlier) S. Pronoun reference and agreement are clear and unambiguous. T. The writer uses lexical ties, which include the following: 1. Repetition or same word 2. Synonyms 3. Words from the same semantic field (class words or closely related pairs representing a contrast, such as boy/girl) U. Assign a score of " 0 " to an essay that merely lists information.

Holistic Scoring Rubric:

Scoring Distinctions I. CONTENT 4 The superior essay will discuss all of the major terms listed in the Dichotomous Scoring Rubric. Not every major term has to be fully exemplified, but most are. One or possibly two major terms may not be exactly named (e.g., "reactive inhibition" rather than "retroactive inhibition"), but the definition and exemplification will be accurate. Minor details may be omitted, but over all, the discussion is complete and accurate. 3 The " 3 " essay may omit one, possibly two, major terms, but if two are omitted, those discussed will be accurately labeled and fully and relevantly exemplified. If all theories and major terms are discussed, one or two may be inaccurately labeled. One (possibly two) may not even be named, but may otherwise be fully and accurately discussed. A " 3 " essay may mislabel one or possibly two main terms, but no more than two. 2 The " 2 " essay omits more than one-third of the information called for in the Dichotomous Scoring Rubric. That is, maybe only one of two theories of remembering (either recall or recognition but not both) isdiscussed. Or both theories may be listed, but one may be inaccurately labeled and its main points inaccurately labeled and/or exemplified. A "2" essay may present accurately only one major theory, but discusses it fully, giving

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accurate examples. At least three main points are accurately labeled and exemplified from the Dichotomous Scoring Rubric, but probably no more than six. The weakest essay contains three or fewer accurate pieces of information listed on the Dichotomous Scoring Scale. All major theories may be listed accurately, but not discussed further. Or one major theory or one major term may be accurately listed and exemplified. Or the essay may list many major terms, but fail to exemplify or further discuss any of them accurately. The " 1 " essay indicates some familiarity with the topic but little understanding of it. An essay receives a " 0 " if it fails to refer to any of the points listed on the Dichotomous Scoring Rubric or if the essay does no more than mention one or two major terms. The " 0 " essay indicates no understanding of the theory to be discussed and so does not warrant a score of " 1 . " ORGANIZATION AND COHERENCE The " 4 " essay begins by announcing the topic to be discussed. The essay may contain a separate introductory paragraph, or it may go on to discuss the first theory or major term in that first paragraph. Other theories or major terms, however, will be signaled by appropriate transitions and by appropriate paragraph divisions. The essay will contain no irrelevant information, and each paragraph will be tightly focused on its main point. Sentences will smoothly connect, which implies that the " 4 " essay will also be clearly cohesive. The essay may or may not contain a concluding sentence or paragraph, but in either case, the reader has the impression that the writer has concluded his/her discussion. Like the superiorly organized essay, the " 3 " essay begins by announcing the topic. The " 3 " essay will also signal the discussion of major terms through appropriate transitions, though the transitions may be implicit rather than explicit. For instance, a movement from a discussion of recognition to a discussion of recall may not be introduced by an explicit transition (such as " A second theory is . . .") but by simply announcing the next topic or term (e.g., "Recall is . . . " ) . The " 3 " essay may or may not have paragraph divisions; transitions or cohesive ties will explicitly signal movement from old to new information or topics. The logical flow of text may not be as smooth as in the " 4 " essay, which means that the reader may only occasionally have to provide connections between ideas or examples (which, in turn, implies that the cohesive score will be lower than " 4 " ) . The essay may contain one (though probably no more) seemingly irrelevant piece of information or erroneous example that disrupts the unity and overall coherence of the essay or one of its paragraphs. The " 3 " essay probably will not contain a concluding sentence or paragraph. The " 2 " essay may not announce the topic, but instead may abruptly begin with the first point to be discussed. It will probably not be divided into separate paragraphs, but if it is, the paragraphs may contain clearly irrelevant or inappropriate information or may not order information in a clear and logical sequence. There are no or few explicit cues to indicate why the information is arranged in the order it is. The flow of text tends to be halting rather than smooth, a quality perhaps created by weak or missing transitions. Sentences may appear to be lists in paragraph form rather than sentences in a coherent text. The essay ends abruptly. If an essay is divided into logical paragraphs but contains slight elaboration (receiving a " 1 " or " 2 " on content), the essay may receive a " 2 " for organization/coherence because there is so little information in the essay to organize and so is little more than an elaborated list in essay or paragraph form. The score on content

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may be average to high, but the reader has to supply at least some connections in order to make the text meaningful. 1 The most weakly organized essays have no discernibly logical or coherent arrangement. Sentences are not connected, and irrelevant information may be presented. The " 1 " essay probably does not begin with any announcement of the topic. Or the essay may deal with only a single theory or single major term and present it as if it is the whole of the theory that should have been discussed in full. In essence, such an essay mistakenly presents a subordinate idea as a superordinate idea and contains many of the problems described above. The score for content may be average to high, but the reader has to supply almost all connections between major terms and between major terms and examples. The " 1 " essay is little more than an elaborated list in paragraph form. 0 An essay receives a " 0 " if it merely lists information in phrases or disconnected sentences that fail to form multi-sentence paragraphs. Essentially, the information is given in isolated and unconnected bits. HI. COHESION 4 The essay that receives the superior rating for cohesion supplies all necessary connections for creating a readable, understandable text. The reader does not have to construct meaning. The essay may contain mechanical and grammatical errors, but they do not noticeably disrupt the logical, smooth flow of information. The essay contains accurate use of semantic and lexical ties. An essay may receive a low score on content and a high score on cohesion. However, an essay that receives a low score on content because it very briefly discusses only one or two points (in only two to three sentences) will not receive a " 4 " for cohesion because the essay contains so little information to tie together. 3 An essay may receive a " 1 " on content and still receive a " 3 " (or " 4 " ) on cohesion if the essay explains in some detail only a single point (e.g., "recall" or "almost remembering"). The " 3 " essay, like the " 4 , " uses cohesive ties appropriately, but the reader may have to supply a connection once or twice or may have to clarify a relation signaled by an approximate or inexact transition or tie. Mechanical or grammatical errors may disrupt somewhat the smooth flow of discourse. Illegible handwriting that causes problems for understanding once or twice may cause an essay to receive a " 3 " instead of a " 4 . " Many such problems may lower the score even more. 2 The reader has to supply missing connections or has to reinterpret erroneous ones. Cohesive ties may be used inappropriately or may be needed but missing. The essay is difficult to understand and to follow. Mechanical or grammatical errors are so prevalent or so serious that they cause confusion and/or seriously disrupt the logical, smooth flow of discourse. An essay that contains only two to three sentences may receive a " 2 " (even if the sentences appear cohesive) because the essay contains so little information to tie together. 1 The weakest of essays will be little more than lists in sentence form, and/or they will be so difficult to interpret that the reader has to supply almost all of the connections between idea units and sentences. Illegible handwriting may also make an essay extremely difficult to understand and so may contribute to an essay's receiving the lowest score. An essay that receives a " 1 " on coherence cannot receive a " 4 " for content because the relations between points and ideas will not be clear or explicit enough to indicate the student's full understanding of the content. 0 A response receives a " 0 " if it is essentially a list of disconnected points of information. The pieces of information will probably not be in sentence form, but even if they are, they

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cannot be considered paragraphs because the sentences or fragments are unconnected by implicit or explicit cohesive ties. Such an essay shows no understanding of how theories, terms, and/or examples are related. These responses or essays are always brief.

Sample Anchor Essays Content

Organization

Cohesion

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During this essay I will discuss the processes involved in forgetting. There are two general theories that have evolved since forgetting research has begun. They are trace-decay and the inhibition theory. First I will discuss the trace-decay theory. The trace-decay theory states that a persons memory will fade away if it is not retreived from time to time. Maybe you sang a song when you were a child and never again. You would easily forget it if it was not practiced. But here are two things that contradict this theory. Old people sometimes remember things from childhood. The other is that continuous motor skills are retained in whole, even if not used for several years. The second theory of forgetting in the inhibition theory. This says that we forget information be of competition among new info. There are three interferences I will discuss. First is retroactove, when new info makes us forget old info. Second is proactive, this is when the old info makes it hard for us to learn new info. Last is repression. We repress things we don't like, such as death, because they releave us of anxiety. Everyone represses one time or another. Freud was the man who came up w/ this concept. Throughout this essay, I have discussed the process involved in forgetting. I've talked about both the trace-decay and the inhibition theory.

The general two theories of forgetting is Trace Decay Theory and inhibition. The Trace Decay theory is where memory fades away because it is not used. This Trace Decay theory has evidence against it. Old people remember from the past. Inhibition has 3 different ones. Retroactive, Proactive and Repression. Retroactive is when you forget the old information and remember the new, for istance studying for an vocabulary test and then studying for a history test. You will forget the vocabulary. Proactive is where the old information stays and you can't remember the new. An example is studying biology when you are thinking about english. Repression is pushing it to the unconscious to lessen anxiety. It is a type of retroactive inhibition. Repression deal with past personal and frightening events. We all repress. 2

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Remembering is process of retrieving information from your brain. There are 2 types Recognition—where you rember somthing from clues usually easier than Recall. Recall is rembering without clues easier on test where the are many answers. 3 types of recall 1 2 3 motor

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One type of motor memory is like you always remember how to ride a bike drive a car 1

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There are two major theories concerning why we forget. The first one is the Decay Theory. This theory states that a person will forget information in past and present if that information isn't frequently used. After much research, the evidence gathered contradicts this particular theory. One example of why this theory is somewhat inadequate is because old people tend to remember some of their childhood experiences as well. 2

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There are two mainpoints that involues with the process of remember forgetting. It begin was- with Trace-decay-Theory when you forget because you do not use it, it fades away and somethink chemicals causes destergrating. It is supported by the bulk of evafroB evaluatuion that attacks the theory that relates and consists of motor skills and childhoodmemories. Trace decay does explain motor skills forgetting. The second is interference or inhibition. We we forget because somethig competes, block or gets in the way. Their are three different kinds of interferences. Retroactive, Proactive and Repression. Retroactive is we learn new because of the old. An example is being able to learn the and while learn anything is internal. Proactive is we learn the new and the old competes and it is stronger. An example is memorizing Hamelet and then trying to learn it soloiquey. Repression is [illegible] repressed because of anxiety that was Freuds theory. Usually it is aroused by painful experences or something freighting. Everyone goes through being repressed at one time or another. Repression is a kind of retroactive remission. 1

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first is trade decay Second is interference Trace Decay deals with the deterioration of memory because Room has to be made new things to be remembered. Interference deals with with the remembering of distant pass, and that causes you to forget new memories.

2) There are two theories involved in forgetting. They are trace decay theory and interference or inhibition theory. In trace decay theory information you have learned on just have leared simply fades away. You have a hard time remembering things. The next theory is interference. This is when you have learned information but the new information is competing with the old information you have learned. The are two kinds of interference they are active and proactive. In active you learn the old and the new is competing. In proactive you learn the new but you forget the old. The old is competting all of the time. These theories were produced by Frued. His says people forget because of anxiety. When people are frightened or scared they repress. He says everybody represses at one time or another in their life. 0

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(1) Remembering or Almost remember something deals with the tip-of the tongue theory which states w s you remember some part of the object but cannot place enough memory on it to remember it completely.