Instr Sci (2011) 39:865–879 DOI 10.1007/s11251-010-9158-x
Do specific relevance instructions promote transfer appropriate processing? Matthew T. McCrudden
Received: 20 September 2009 / Accepted: 22 October 2010 / Published online: 4 November 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract This study examined whether specific relevance instructions affect transfer appropriate processing. Undergraduates (n = 52) were randomly assigned to one of three pre-reading question conditions that asked them what-questions, why-questions, or to read for understanding (i.e., control condition). There were no differences in reading time across conditions for sentences targeted by the pre-reading questions. There were three main findings with respect to cued recall. First, participants in the experimental conditions did better on questions that had greater similarity to relevance instructions than questions that had lesser similarity to relevance instructions. Second, participants in the experimental conditions did better on questions that had greater similarity to relevance instructions than the participants in the other conditions on those same questions. Third, participants in the control condition recalled equal amounts of information for both question. The results suggest that specific relevance instructions promote transfer appropriate processing and affect the quality of memory for text. Keywords Relevance instructions Transfer appropriate processing Text processing Reading comprehension
Students sometimes struggle to comprehend text because they have difficulty identifying task-relevant information (Cain and Oakhill 1999; Cataldo and Oakhill 2000; Rouet 2006; Wiley et al. 2009). However, relevance instructions can provide readers with criteria for identifying task-relevant information, which can enhance comprehension (Bra˚ten and Samuelstuen 2004; Cerda´n and Vidal-Abarca 2008; Rouet et al. 2001; van den Broek et al. 2005). Relevance instructions are explicit cues that provide readers with criteria for determining information’s relevance to a particular task (Lehman and Schraw 2002). For instance, an instructor can provide students with pre-reading questions to be answered from an assigned text. It is well-established that relevance instructions help readers select highly M. T. McCrudden (&) School of Educational Psychology and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 17-310, Karori, Wellington 6147, New Zealand e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected]
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relevant information and affect how they devote resources towards processing and learning that information (see Duchastel and Merrill 1973 and Faw and Waller 1976 for earlier reviews; see McCrudden and Schraw 2007 for a more recent review). However, there is limited research investigating how specific relevance instructions, in the form of prereading questions, affect readers’ moment-by-moment processing of text and cued recall of text information. Thus, while it is clear that pre-reading questions can enhance learning from text, how they affect processing and the reader’s mental representation of taskrelevant information needs further investigation. McCrudden and Schraw (2007) conducted an extensive literature review on research which had investigated the role of relevance instructions on text learning. They identified two main categories of relevance instructions that provide either specific or general criteria for determining relevance (see Fig. 1). Specific relevance instructions prompt readers to focus on precise pieces of information, whereas general relevance instructions prompt readers to read for a broad theme or purpose. Specific relevance instructions can take many forms including pre-reading questions/objectives (i.e., presented to readers before they begin reading), pre-questions (i.e., inserted before and pertain to upcoming segments), and post-questions (i.e., inserted after and pertain to previous segments). Specific relevance instructions include targeted segment and elaborative interrogation instructions. Targeted segment instructions are questions or objectives that prompt readers to focus on discrete categories or pieces of information, whereas elaborative interrogation instructions prompt readers to deduce an answer by integrating text segments with each other and with prior knowledge. General relevance instructions include perspective and purpose instructions. Perspective instructions prompt readers to view a text from a designated point of reference, whereas purpose instructions prompt readers to read for a general reason. These categories represent a general taxonomy of relevance instruction manipulations. In the present study it was investigated how specific relevance instructions, in the form of targeted segment prereading questions, affected reading time and memory. Relevance Instructions
Specific
Definition:
Example:
General
Targeted Segments Prompts that target discrete text segments
Elaborative Interrogation Prompts that promote explanatory inferences
What is the yearly rainfall in Andorra?
Why does most of Andorra’s food have to be imported?
Fig. 1 Taxonomy of relevance manipulations
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Perspective
Purpose
Prompts that ask readers to view a text from a designated point of reference Imagine you will be moving to Andorra for several years, determine the good and bad sides of your new home country from the perspective of a geologist.
Prompts that ask readers to read for a general reason
Read for study vs. entertainment
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Previous research has shown that pre-reading questions affect reading time and memory. For instance, in Rothkopf and Billington (1979), high school students memorized prereading questions before reading a text that was presented in one-to three-paragraph sections via a slide projector as slide inspection time was recorded. Participants who memorized pre-reading questions recalled more of the question-relevant text than those in the control condition, whereas participants in the control condition recalled more of the text that the questions did not target. Participants who memorized pre-reading questions spent more time inspecting slides with question-relevant information than slides without question-relevant information, yet spent less time on both slide types than participants in the control condition. These data suggest that specific relevance instructions can enhance reading efficiency, whereby readers remember relevant information while spending less time reading it as compared to readers who do not receive pre-reading questions. More recently, McCrudden et al. (2005) presented college students with pre-reading questions that pertained to different segments of text. The text was presented one sentence at a time using a reading time methodology, which enabled the collection of reading time allocation to individual sentences. Similar to Rothkopf and Billington (1979), participants did not spend more time reading relevant information; however, they recalled more question-relevant information than question-irrelevant information and more question-relevant information than participants for whom that information was not relevant. This suggests that relevance instructions help readers generate goals and specific strategies for reading, which enable them to allocate resources in a more systematic way, which enhances learning. These findings suggest that relevance instructions enhance readers’ goals at encoding. Thus, some mechanism other than reading time is responsible for differences in memory for text.
Goal-focusing model of relevance McCrudden and Schraw (2007) proposed the goal-focusing model of relevance to provide an explanation for how relevance instructions affect reading goals, processing, and learning in task-induced reading situations (see Fig. 2). Stage 1 of the model is relevance cues, or cues that signal information’s relevance. Relevance cues can be explicit, such as specific directions for reading (Reynolds 1992), or implicit, such as the order in which information appears (e.g., first mention) or repetition (Lorch and van den Broek 1997). Relevance instructions are explicit cues that signal information’s relevance to a reading task. For example, an instructor could provide readers with pre-reading questions before reading an expository text about the country of Andorra. It should be noted that reader’s personal intentions (e.g., beliefs about what constitutes comprehension; the value placed on completing an assigned task) interact with relevance cues to influence reading goals. Stage 2 is goal formation, which is the process by readers use relevance cues to generate reading goals. For example, a reader who receives what-questions about Andorra adopts a
Relevance Cues
Goals
Resource Allocation
Learning
Fig. 2 Goal-focusing model
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goal to answer those questions, whereas a reader who receives why-questions adopts a goal to answer these questions. Readers may further adjust their reading goals once they begin reading and as they progress through the text (e.g., Reynolds et al. 1990). Stage 3 is resource allocation, which involves allocating attention in ways that help readers identify and process goal-relevant information. Processing includes routine processing, such as skilled decoding (Perfetti 1985), and strategic processing, such as explaining and elaborating (e.g., Linderholm and van den Broek 2002; Magliano et al. 1999). Other reader characteristics, such as prior knowledge and motivation, can also influence goals and processing (e.g., Alexander 1997; Taboada and Guthrie 2006). Readers focus attention on information based on its relevance to the reading goal. For example, students may direct attention to information that pertains to what- or why-questions. Previous research has shown that relevance instructions affect attention during reading (e.g., Burton and Daneman 2007; Goetz et al. 1983; Kaakinen et al. 2002). Stage 4 is learning. An outcome of successful reading is the construction of a mental representation of the text. The nature of the reading goal and the allocation of attention in service of that goal affect text learning (e.g., Magliano et al. 1999). Previous research has shown that relevance instructions improve learning and memory (e.g., Goetz et al. 1983; Kaakinen and Hyo¨na¨ 2007; Pichert and Anderson 1977; Reynolds 1992; Schraw et al. 1993).
Transfer appropriate processing Transfer appropriate processing (TAP) is the assumption that the similarity between processes engaged in during learning and testing affect test performance (Morris et al. 1977). When processes have greater similarity, test performance is higher; conversely, when processes have less similarity, test performance is lower. In their seminal study, Morris et al. (1977) asked participants to learn words by either focusing on either their semantic or phonemic properties. In the semantic condition, participants read sentences missing a word (e.g., The _____ had a silver engine) followed by a word that either meaningfully-completed the sentence (e.g., train) or did not (e.g., eagle). Participants had to decide whether the word meaningfully-completed the sentence. In the phonemic condition, participants read sentences (e.g., _____ rhymes with legal) followed by a word that did (e.g., eagle) or did not rhyme (e.g., peach). Participants had to decide whether the word rhymed with the sentence. They assessed memory with recognition tests that required either semantic or phonemic processing. Participants did better when study and test processing conditions had greater similarity (e.g., semantic-study and semantic-testing) than when they had lesser similarity (e.g., semantic-study and phonemic-testing).
The present study The purpose of the present study was to examine whether specific relevance instructions promote TAP and to provide insights into readers’ mental representations of text. More specifically, it was examined whether readers would do better on a cued recall test with greater similarity to relevance instructions than a test with lesser similarity to relevance instructions. An experiment was conducted in which participants received one of three types of relevance instructions: what-questions, why-questions, or control instructions (i.e., no questions). What-questions could be answered with specific words within a single sentence. Why-questions required the readers to deduce an answer from specific words
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within a sentence. The control instructions asked participants to read for understanding. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three relevance instruction conditions and then read a text sentence-by-sentence via computer as reading time per sentence was recorded. After reading, participants completed free recall and cued recall tasks. Previous research on pre-reading questions has relied primarily on free recall data rather than cued recall data. Cued recall involves providing a ‘‘hint’’ about previously studied information and can provide additional insights into the availability of information in memory. With respect to reading, this is particularly important for understanding a reader’s memory representation of a text. Differences in cued recall between readers who read the same text, yet receive different relevance instructions, suggests even stronger differences in readers’ mental representations of text. Thus, differences in cued recall can provide evidence of transfer appropriate processing. Sentence reading times can provide information about readers’ online processing of text (i.e., moment-by-moment processing of text during reading), and can be used to assess whether readers allocate attention differently during reading (Magliano et al. 1999). It was expected that these data sets would yield a clearer understanding of how pre-reading questions affect online processing and offline memory (Kendeou and van den Broek 2007). This inquiry was framed in terms of two competing hypotheses that are referred to as the alignment and non-alignment hypotheses. According to the alignment hypothesis, relevance instructions should promote TAP. Readers should do better on a post-reading retrieval test when pre-reading questions and the post-reading retrieval test are aligned compared to when they are not aligned. This should occur because relevance instructions should affect encoding during reading. Readers should use relevance instructions to encode task-relevant and task-irrelevant information differently while reading, which should affect retrieval of this information. The alignment hypothesis predicted that participants should do better on a test that has greater similarity with relevance instructions than a test that has lesser similarity with relevance instructions. For example, participants who receive whatquestions before reading should do better on the what-question retrieval task than on the why-question retrieval task, and they should do better on the what-question retrieval task than participants who receive the why-questions or the control instructions. In contrast, according to the non-alignment hypothesis, relevance instructions should not promote TAP. Specific relevance instructions do not necessarily eliminate the possibility that readers will encode information that the relevance instructions do not specifically highlight. For instance, in Anderson and Pichert (1978), participants were asked to read a text from the perspective of a burglar or homebuyer. On the first recall task, participants recalled more information that was aligned with their perspective. On the second recall task, they were asked to recall the text from a different perspective, and they recalled additional information that was relevant to the other perspective. The non-alignment hypothesis predicted that participants should do equally well on tests that have greater or lesser similarity with specific relevance instructions. For example, participants who receive what-questions before reading should have comparable scores on both the what-question and why-question retrieval tests. It should be noted that no predictions were made with respect to reading times because the focus of this study was on cued recall. However, the reading time data were important because they provided a measure of processing effort, which could be used to interpret findings from the cued recall data. For instance, if there were no reading time differences across the conditions, yet there were differences in cued recall, then it would be possible to infer that some factor other than reading time lead to differences in cued recall.
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Method Participants and design Fifty-two undergraduate education majors from a southwestern university in the United States participated for extra credit for their education course. Approximately 79% of the participants were female; 21% were male. Ages ranged from 19 to 46 years (M age = 22.4 years, SD = 5.1 years). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three relevance instruction conditions (what-questions, why-questions, or control). Participants in the what-question condition received what-questions before reading, participants in the why-question condition received why-questions before reading, and participants in the control condition did not receive pre-reading questions. There were 18 participants in the what-question condition and 17 participants each in the why-question and control conditions. Materials Topic knowledge questionnaire The topic knowledge questionnaire consisted of three items, one for each of the countries described in the text. The instructions asked participants to rate how much knowledge they had about each country using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = very little to 5 = very much). For example, ‘‘Please rate how much knowledge you have about Andorra’’. The decision to use a holistic self-estimate of topic knowledge was made for two reasons. One, asking students specific questions about each country could prompt them to look for this information in the text, which could introduce a confounding variable. Second, a pilot study with this text using participants from the same population showed that students had very little knowledge of any of the countries. Text The text (see Appendix 1) had 876 words and described three remote countries (i.e., Pitcairn, Andorra, and Brunei). It was adapted from a text used by Kaakinen et al. (2002). The text described seven topics (location and geography, climate, history, government, economy, transportation, and population and language) for each country. Each country was described in its entirety before the next country was described, beginning with Pitcairn, then Andorra, and lastly Brunei. Apparatus The apparatus consisted of 15 Dell Optiplex 755 computers with 18-in. (45 cm) monitors. The reading timer was an HTML program written in Javascript. Relevance instructions Participants in all conditions received the following instructions: ‘‘You will read a short passage on three countries: Pitcairn, Andorra, and Brunei. We want you to read the passage carefully, remembering as much of the passage as possible. Later, you will be given a test to see how well you understood what you read.’’
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Participants in the what- and why-question conditions received these additional instructions: ‘‘Before you read the story, please read the six questions below and rate each question for clarity. We want you to focus on these questions as you read the story. Use the scale shown below to rate how clearly you understand what each question is asking. Please write a number in the blank next to each question.’’ See Appendix 2 for the what-questions and Appendix 3 for the why-questions. Participants rated the clarity of each of the six prereading questions using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all clear to 5 = very clear); this provided evidence that participants had read the instructions. Free recall test The free recall test instructions asked participants to write down as much as possible about the passage they had just read, to try to remember as much as they could, and that it was extremely important to write down every bit of the passage that they could remember. Cued recall test The cued recall test consisted of the what-questions and why-questions questions from the pre-reading relevance instructions. The instructions at the top of the first page were, ‘‘Please answer each of the following questions. Try your best, even if you are unsure.’’ Procedure Participants were tested in groups of 5–10 in a campus computer lab. Each participant was seated in a chair in front of an individual desktop computer. There was ample space between each participant. Participants completed the topic knowledge questionnaire and were given an overview of tasks. Then they were instructed to use the mouse to click the ‘‘start’’ icon and the title of the passage would appear in the on-screen window. To advance to each successive sentence, participants hit the ‘‘enter’’ key. They were instructed to read at a pace that was comfortable to them, and were informed that they would not be able to return to previously-read sentences. One sentence appeared on the screen at a time. Next they were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions and read their respective instructions. After all participants indicated they had finished reading the relevance instructions, they read the text. The relevance instructions were not available while students read the text. After all participants finished reading, they completed a 2-min interpolated task, and then did the free recall test. Next, they did the cued recall test (i.e., the what- & why-questions). After all participants had completed the final task, they were debriefed and dismissed. The entire experiment was completed in approximately 1 h. Scoring Reading time Reading times were recorded to the nearest millisecond. The six sentences that could be used to answer the what-questions contained 60 words; the six sentences that could be used to answer the why-questions contained 93 words. To allow comparison of these sentence types, reading time data was converted into a ratio of seconds per word (e.g., aggregate reading time for the why-sentences/93/1000). A ratio closer to zero is equated with faster
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reading time. The conversion from milliseconds to seconds did not affect the sample statistic value, the significance of statistical tests, or the effect size magnitude because reading times were divided by a constant number (i.e., 1000). Reading time data were screened prior to analyses to test for extreme scores. The data set was trimmed to eliminate scores greater than four standard deviations from the mean because extreme outliers can skew results. When sentence reading was more than four standard deviations from the group mean, the participant’s reading time reflected the mean reading time for the remaining sentences. Only two reading time scores were deleted, both for the same participant in the control condition for two of the why-sentences. Free recall protocols There were 22 sentences pertaining to Andorra. Information in each recall protocol was evaluated to determine whether it matched information in an Andorra sentence. These were the only sentences scored for recall. Segments on the recall protocols were score dichotomously (present vs. absent) by tallying the number of segments that were recalled in either verbatim or paraphrase form. A segment was scored as a paraphrase if it captured the target sentence’s gist meaning. Segments were scored as verbatim if they were recalled word-for-word or with minor changes that did not affect meaning. When a segment was absent, incorrect, incomplete, or too vague to be linked accurately to an Andorra sentence, no score was assigned. One trained rater blind to experimental condition scored all recall protocols, and a second rater scored 15 randomly selected recall protocols. Inter-rater reliability was high (94%), so scores from the first rater were used in the analysis. Scores are reported as proportions (i.e., 8/22 = .36). Cued recall protocols The ‘‘what’’ and ‘‘why’’ cued recall test items were scored dichotomously using a scoring key (see Appendices 2, 3). Each correct answer received a score of 1, whereas each incorrect answer received a score of 0. The observed total scores for the what-test items ranged from 0 to 9 (possible range 0–9); the why-test items ranged from 0 to 9 (possible range 0–9). Some items had more than one response. For example, the responses to the question ‘‘What borders Andorra?’’ were ‘‘France’’ and ‘‘Spain.’’ Scores are reported as proportions (i.e., 6/9 = .67).
Results A preliminary analysis was conducted to determine whether there were differences in topic knowledge among the three conditions. A one-way MANOVA with relevance instructions as the independent variable and familiarity ratings for Andorra, Pitcairn, and Brunei as the dependent variables showed no between-group differences on familiarity ratings (F \ 1), indicating that participants’ topic knowledge about each country did not differ across conditions. Tests of homogeneity of variance (Levene’s) were supported (p’s [ .10). All statistical tests were conducted at the a = .05 level of significance. Means and standard errors for the dependent measures appear in Table 1.
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Table 1 Dependent measure means and standard errors for each condition Measure
Relevance instruction condition What-questions M
Why-questions SE
M
Control SE
M
SE
Reading time What sentences
.40
.02
.39
.02
.36
.02
Why sentences
.36
.03
.34
.03
.35
.03
.35
.03
.36
.03
.26
.03
Free recall Cued recall What-questions
.64
.05
.40
.05
.43
.05
Why-questions
.45
.04
.61
.04
.44
.04
Notes. Reading time is reported as seconds per word, which was computed by dividing total reading time by the total number of words by 1000. A ratio closer to zero is equated with faster reading time. Recall is reported as the number of idea units recalled divided by the total number of idea units (n = 22). Cued recall is reported as answers correct divided by the total number of possible correct answers (n = 9)
Reading time A relevance instructions (what-questions, why-questions, or control) 9 sentence type (what, why) mixed ANOVA was conducted on sentence reading times. Relevance instructions was the between-participants variable and sentence type was the within-participants variable. There was a main effect of sentence type [F (1, 49) = 4.07, MSE = .004, p \ .01, g2 = .141] such that why-sentence reading times (M = .35, SE = .02) were faster than what-sentence reading times (M = .38, SE = .01). No other effects were significant (p’s [ .10). Thus, there were no reading time differences across conditions. Free recall A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with relevance instructions (what-questions, why-questions, or control) as the independent variable and free recall as the dependent variable was not significant, [F (2, 49) = 2.96, p = .061], although there was trend for participants in the experimental conditions to recall more than participants in the control condition. Cued recall A relevance instructions (what-questions, why-questions, or control) 9 question type (what, why) mixed ANOVA was conducted on cued recall. Relevance instructions was the between-participants variable and question type was the within-participants variable. The main effect for question type was not significant (p [ .10), indicating that there were no differences between scores on the what (M = .49, SE = .03) and why (M = .50, SE = .02) questions. The main effect for relevance instructions was not significant, F (2, 49) = 2.42, p = .10, although there was a trend for participants in the what (M = .54, SE = .04) and why (M = .51, SE = .04) conditions to answer more questions correctly than participants in the control condition (M = .44, SE = .04).
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The interaction effect between relevance instructions and question type was significant, F (2, 49) = 12.81, MSE = .028, p \ .001, g2 = .343. Means were compared using Tukey’s HSD method to test hypothesized predictions. The alignment hypothesis predicted that participants should do better on a test that has greater similarity with relevance instructions than a test that has lesser similarity with relevance instructions; the data supported this prediction. Participants did better on test questions with greater similarity to relevance instructions than test questions with lesser similarity to relevance instructions (e.g., what-condition participants did better on what-questions than why-questions). In addition, participants did better on test questions with greater similarity to relevance instructions than participants who received relevance instructions with lesser similarity to test questions (e.g., participants in the what-question condition did better on what-questions than participants in the why-question condition). This prediction was further supported because participants in the experimental conditions did better on questions with greater similarity to relevance instructions than the control condition participants, and the control condition participants did equally well on both question types.
Discussion The purpose of the present study was to examine whether specific relevance instructions promote transfer appropriate processing (TAP). More specifically, it was examined whether readers would do better on a cued recall test that had greater similarity with relevance instructions than a test that had lesser similarity with relevance instructions. Results supported the alignment hypothesis, which predicted that readers would do better on a post-reading retrieval test when pre-reading relevance instructions and the post-reading retrieval test are aligned compared to when they are not aligned. The main findings of interest pertained to performance on the cued recall task. First, consistent with the alignment hypothesis, participants did better on test questions that were aligned with their pre-reading questions than test questions that were not. Further, participants in the control condition recalled information for both question types equally. Second, participants did better on test questions that were aligned with their pre-reading questions than participants in the other conditions did on those same questions. Further, participants in the experimental conditions and control condition recalled information for non-aligned questions equally. These data show that the relevance instructions enhanced memory for when they were aligned with test questions. They also show that the relevance instructions did not interfere with memory for information needed to answer non-aligned questions as participants in the experimental and control conditions recalled this information equally. Previous research has shown that relevance instructions can affect reading time for relevant and irrelevant information (e.g., Reynolds 1992). Thus, it is possible that greater recall of relevant information is due to greater amount of time spent reading that information. The data from the present study indicated that cued recall differences were not attributable to reading time differences as there were no reading time differences across conditions for either sentence type. More specifically, participants who received whatquestions spent comparable amounts of time reading the what-sentences as participants who received the why-questions and control instructions. Similarly, participants who received why-questions spent comparable amounts of time reading why-sentences as participants who received the what-questions and control instructions.
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Thus, participants in the experimental conditions recalled more task-relevant information than participants in the control condition yet did not spend more time reading this information. This finding is consistent with previous research which has shown that specific relevance instructions can promote recall without increasing reading time (e.g., McCrudden et al. 2005). Taken together, these findings suggest that relevance instructions affect not only the quantity but also the quality of memory for text. Further, these data suggest that specific relevance instructions prompt students to process task-relevant and task-irrelevant information differently, and that measures of cued recall are sensitive to these differences. There are two explanations for the present results, neither of which are mutually exclusive. One explanation is that relevance instructions affect how readers process and represent task-relevant information. Not all the information in a text is task-relevant and how readers process information may be based on the extent to which it matches their goals (McCrudden et al. 2010). As each task-relevant element is processed, connections between it and other task-relevant elements in the developing mental representation of the text should be created; thereby strengthening the interconnection among these elements (see Langston and Trabasso 1999). The end product of such processing is a relevance network that consists of a set of interconnected elements (McCrudden et al. 2005). A second explanation is that relevance instructions affect the internal standards that readers hold for understanding text, such as standards of coherence, which ‘‘reflect a reader’s knowledge and beliefs about what constitutes good comprehension as well as the reader’s specific goals for reading the particular text’’ (van den Broek et al. 2002, p. 137). Strategic readers process text with the intent to meet their reading goals and focus their attention in ways that help them identify and process goal-relevant information (Burton and Daneman 2007; Cataldo and Oakhill 2000; Rapp and Kendeou 2007). Processing subsequently influences learning and memory. Thus, the nature of the reading goal and the readers’ processing affect her mental representation of the text (e.g., Magliano et al. 1999). Thinking about text information differently may affect how the information is encoded and organized in memory, which influences retrieval (Jee and Wiley 2007; Rawson and Kintsch 2002). However, the present data do not allow for definitive conclusions about the actual processes students engaged in while reading the different sentence types. Results from the present study extend previous research on specific relevance instructions by providing evidence that specific relevance instructions promote TAP and suggest that relevance instructions affect how information is organized in memory. The present study’s main implication for educators is that teachers should consider the degree of match between the reading instructions and the testing/assessment method when they assign readings. Providing students with reading instructions that are aligned with testing/ assessment methods may help students learn text information in a way that will help them remember or use the information on future tasks in and out of the classroom. Further, providing readers with relevance instructions may be more effective than providing minimal guidance (Kirschner et al. 2006). Future research should examine directly how relevance instructions affect readers’ goals and strategies as described by McCrudden and Schraw’s (2007) goal-focusing model. In the present study, how relevance instructions affect reading time and memory was investigated. Future research should investigate what kinds of processes readers use when reading more or less relevant text segments. This could involve using a think-aloud methodology whereby readers describe their thoughts as they read. This would provide more direct evidence for the effect of relevance instructions on online reading strategies, which may provide insights into how relevance instructions affect encoding. Future
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research should also examine how that various types of relevance instructions in McCrudden and Schraw’s (2007) taxonomy affect readers with different levels of reading abilities to provide insights into how readers use relevance instructions to learn from text and under what conditions relevance instructions facilitate learning.
Appendix 1 Exotic countries All around the world, there are small, remote countries that few people have ever heard of. These small countries live their own quiet life in the shadow of larger nations. Among these lesser known countries, there are some very interesting countries with unique qualities. In the following text, three such countries are introduced: Pitcairn, Andorra, and Brunei. Pitcairn is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is about 3,100 miles east of New Zealand. Pitcairn is a volcano by origin. It rises more than a quarter of a mile above sea level. The overall area of Pitcairn is only about three square miles. Pitcairn’s yearly precipitation is high, about 90 inches. Pitcairn’s climate is mild and the average temperature is around 70°F. In 1790, rebels of the British warship Bounty settled in Pitcairn. Twelve Tahitian women accompanied them onboard. The island was so remote that another European ship did not pass by it for 18 years. Today, Pitcairn is a British colony, which has autonomous status. Pitcairn’s population earns its living from cattle, fishing, and agriculture. Sweet potatoes, sugar-cane and a variety of fruits and vegetables are grown on the island. Pitcairn does not have a good transportation system. There is no airport harbor on the island. The only way to get to Pitcairn is to take a boat from Tahiti to the outer waters surrounding Pitcairn. Then you must row from the surrounding waters to the island, provided that the weather is good. Due to its bad connections, all mail to the island takes about 6 months. In Pitcairn, there are 60 inhabitants. All of the inhabitants live in a small village named Adamstown. The islanders are descendants of the British rebels who settled the island. The people of Pitcairn live in accordance with a set of fairly strict rules. For example, every inhabitant between 16 and 60 years of age has to take part in public service of some sort. The population of the island varies somewhat, because the youngsters need to move to another island to attend school. As a British colony, English is spoken in Pitcairn, which is also its official language. Andorra is a small mountainous country. It is located in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain. Its landscape consists of rugged mountains and deep gorges and valleys. Andorra’s climate also is characterized by ample precipitation throughout the year. The yearly rainfall can even exceed 90 inches. In the winter, this leads to a long-lasting snow cover. Many of the mountain-passes between Andorra and France can be cut off by snow. Andorra is a monarchy with a prince or princess. It has maintained its independence mostly because the remote upper valleys of the Pyrenees have very little strategic or economic significance. The Spanish bishop of Urgel and the president of France jointly secure the territorial integrity of Andorra. The legislative power in Andorra is held by the 28-member parliament. Most inhabitants of Andorra do not pay taxes at all. The state revenue consists of tourism, export of electricity, and publication of postal stamps. An estimated 9 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra’s tax-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. This small country is also planning to strengthen its banking
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business to speed up its development as a tax haven. Andorra does not have an airport or railways. All traffic is routed to the main highway, which passes through the country. Spanish is spoken in Andorra. However, the official language is Catalan. The population of Andorra is about 65,000. Population growth has approached 7% in some years due to immigration. To become a citizen of Andorra, the person needs to be a third-generation immigrant. Brunei is located in Southeast Asia. It borders Malaysia and the South China Sea. Its flat coastal plain rises to the mountains in the east and is hilly lowland to the west. In the lowland, the typical type of vegetation is rainforest, whereas the mountains are mostly covered with alpine trees. The climate of Brunei is tropical. Throughout the year it is hot and very humid. Heavy rainfall is also quite common. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Brunei was a prosperous country. Then Brunei entered a period of decline brought on by internal strife over royal succession, colonial expansion of European powers, and piracy. In 1888, Brunei became a British protectorate independence was achieved in 1984. The same family has ruled Brunei for over six centuries. In Brunei, crude oil and natural gas production account for nearly half of the economy. Per capita income is far above most other developing countries. The government provides for all medical services and subsidizes rice and housing. Plans for the future include upgrading the labor force, reducing unemployment, strengthening the banking and tourist sectors. Brunei has several ports and harbors along its coastline. It also has an airport with a paved runway and three helicopter ports. There are 365,000 people living in Brunei. Most of the people are Malaysian although there is a large Chinese population. The official language is Malaysian. English and Chinese are spoken by a many of the inhabitants. The population is growing at a rate of about 2% per year.
Appendix 2 See Table 2.
Table 2 What-questions, corresponding sentences, and answer key Question
Corresponding sentence
Answer key (including point value)
What borders Andorra?
It is located in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain
France (1 pt.); Spain (1 pt.)
What is the yearly The yearly rainfall can even exceed 90 rainfall in Andorra? inches What type of government does Andorra have?
Andorra is a monarchy with a prince or princess
What does Andorra’s The state revenue consists of tourism, revenue consist of? export of electricity, and publication of postal stamps
90 inches (1 pt.) Monarchy (1 pt.)
Tourism (1 pt.); export of electricity (1 pt.); publication of postal stamps (1 pt.)
What is the official language of Andorra?
However, the official language is Catalan
Catalan (1 pt.)
What is Andorra’s population?
The population of Andorra is about 65,000 65,000 (1 pt.)
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M. T. McCrudden
Appendix 3 See Table 3.
Table 3 Why-questions, corresponding sentences, and answer key Question
Corresponding sentence
Why does Andorra have It is located in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain deep gorges and valleys?
Answer key (including point value) It’s located in mountains (1 pt.)
Because of snow (1 pt.)
Why can the mountain passes in Andorra be cut off?
Many of the mountain-passes between Andorra and France can be cut off by snow
Why has Andorra maintained its independence?
It has maintained its independence mostly Remote location (1 pt.), little because the remote upper valleys of the strategic significance (1 pt.) little economic significance (1 pt.) Pyrenees have very little strategic or economic significance
Why do tourists visit Andorra?
Tax-free status (1 pt.), resorts (1 pt.) An estimated 9 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra’s tax-free status and by its summer and winter resorts
Why does traffic pass through the main highway?
Andorra does not have an airport or railways
Why does it take a long To become a citizen of Andorra, the person needs to be a third-generation time to become a immigrant citizen of Andorra?
No airport/railways (1 pt.)
A grandparent and parent must immigrate there before you (1 pt.)
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