Mathemagenic Behaviours and Efficiency in Learning from Prose Materials: Review, Critique and Recommendations

Abstract

Until quite recently, it appeared that the puzzle of how people learn from meaningful prose materials and how such learning can be enhanced was destined to remain unsolved and, for the most part, ignored. Carroll (1968) correctly observed that our learning theories contained a huge gap where one might expect to find explanations regarding acquisition of information from prose materials. Unfortunately, the rise of behaviourism was accompanied by the suppression of interest in cognitive processes. Thus, for several decades attention was focused primarily on simple associative mechanisms of learning, and much of learning research involved conditioning techniques applied to lower organisms. These trends may well have been responsible for the gap alluded to by Carroll. In any event, the tide now appears to be turning. The steady increase in the quantity of research being reported in the professional journals on learning from prose reflects a mushrooming interest in the topic (Frase, 1973a). Among the most important reasons for this trend are the work of Ausubel on meaningful verbal learning (1963) and the introduction of the notion of mathemagenic activities by Rothkopf (1965). While many researchers were attempting to generalize principles of

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