Planning Prompts and Indexed Terms in Textbook Search Tasks

Text search is a type of strategic reading that involves locating specific goal-relevant information. Previous research has indicated that college and high school students often exhibit inefficient or unsuccessful text-search performance. Consequently, the effects of 2 manipulations on text-search performance were investigated: (a) the presence of indexed terms in a text-search task and (b) the use of a planning prompt before beginning a task. Thirty-four college students engaged in 6 text-search tasks. Half of these tasks contained terms that could be used in an index; half required that a search term be generated. Half of the subjects were randomly assigned to a prompt condition in which they were prompted to plan their search before beginning each task. The results indicated that a planning prompt raised the success level of search performance, as did the presence of terms that were searchable in the textbook's index.