The Effect of Metacognitive Instruction in Outlining and Graphic Organizer Construction on Students' Comprehension in a Tenth-Grade World History Class

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to explore the effect of graphic organizer instruction versus outlining on students' text recall in tenth-grade world history. Based on the hierarchical structure of graphic organizers depicting interrelationships among ideas, we hypothesized that students instructed in the use of graphic organizers would display significantly higher text recall than a group using outlines. Seventy-two tenth graders in three sections of world history participated in the study. Two sections received systematic instruction in the development of graphic organizers and a third section received parallel instruction in outlining. One of the two graphic organizer sections had previous instruction in summarization and question generation during an earlier study. Six 15-item multiple-choice quizzes comprised one of the dependent measures. On the first five quizzes there were no significant differences between the three sections. However, when teacher prompting was phased-out on quiz six, the graphic organizer group with previous training in summarization significantly outperformed the other two groups. Additionally, on a second dependent measure involving the development of a written recall protocol based on difficult college level text, the group with previous summarization experience significantly outperformed both the new graphic organizer group and the outlining section. Implications for a cumulative, long-range view of metacognitive instruction are discussed.