Planning Prompts and Indexed Terms in Textbook Search Tasks

Mariam Jean Dreher, Rachel F. Brown

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)662-669
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Educational Psychology
Volume85
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1993
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Planning Prompts and Indexed Terms in Textbook Search Tasks'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this