Strategic Processing of Text: An Investigation of the Effects on Adults’ Question-Answering Performance

Abstract

Thirty undergraduate students were asked to read a 4200-word article about the reunion of long-separated identical twins. Four times across the eight-page article, they were asked to stop and reflect (in writing) on how they were reading and preparing to answer an unspecified question about the twins. When reading was completed, each subject received a question sheet, and the text was removed. The question asked the students to list as many similarities between the twins as they could. Particularly of interest in the study were differences in question performance between those subjects who verbalized attempting to discern what the eventual question might be while reading and those subjects who did not verbalize such a strategy. Half of the subjects verbalized a question-formulation strategy, and their eventual performance on the similarities question was significantly superior to those subjects who verbalized other strategies (captured here in qualitative analysis of reflection comments) but did not verbalize a question-formulation plan. Strategic behavior effects and suggestions for further research are discussed.

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