Effects of underlining textbook sentences on passage and sentence retention

Abstract

Below average college freshmen read an 1844‐word selection about the Kalahari Desert. The experimental group underlined one sentence per paragraph, and the control group only read the passage. Afterwards subjects took a multiple‐choice test of items drawn from superordinate and subordinate sentences. While overall passage retention was not improved, underlined sentences were recalled better than nonunderlined sentences, and superordinate sentences, whether or not underlined, were retained better than subordinate sentences by the experimental but not by the control group. When a review was added in a second experiment, passage retention was still not improved. This time both experimental and control groups retained superordinate sentences better than subordinate sentences. Underlining subordinate sentences improved their retention even above that achieved by the control group. Results suggest that without review, underlining helped these below average students sort out superordinate ideas. With review, underlining subordinate sentences helped their retention without decreasing retention of superordinate sentences.

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