Learning from analogy-enhanced science text

Learning from Analogy-Enhanced Science Text

Shawn M. Glynn, Tomone Takahashi

College of Education, Departments of Educational Psychology and Science Education, 325 Aderhold Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602

Received 24 June 1996; first revision 5 September 1997; second revision 16 February 1998;accepted 17 March 1998

Abstract: The present study examined the role that an elaborate analogy can play when middle schoolstudents learn a major concept from a science text. The elaborate analogy had both graphic and text com-ponents that integrated and mapped key features from an analog (a factory) to the target concept (an ani-mal cell). The target features were the functions of the cell parts. In Experiment 1, eighth graders whostudied an analogy-enhanced text had greater immediate and 2-week recall of cell-part functions than stu-dents who studied a control text. In Experiment 2, sixth graders who studied an analogy-enhanced textconsidered the target concept to be more understandable than students who studied a control text. The sixthgraders who studied the analogy-enhanced text also had greater immediate and 2-week retention, as mea-sured by both recall and recognition. In both experiments, the analogy was interpreted as acting as a me-diator between the students’ existing knowledge and the new knowledge in the text. The analogy mappeda familiar, concrete schema onto that of the target concept, making the target concept more understand-able and memorable. Implications for the meaningful learning of science text are discussed. © 1998 JohnWiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 1129–1149, 1998.

In 1665, Robert Hooke examined thin slices of cork through a light microscope. Hooke not-ed that the cork seemed to consist of tiny cavities surrounded by thin walls. Hooke called thecavities “cells” because they reminded him of the small rooms that monks lived in. More than300 years later, Lewis Thomas (1974) wrote:

I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannotthink of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking vis-ible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern NewEngland, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like, what is it mostlike? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell. (p. 10)

Throughout the history of science, scientists and science educators have used analogies toexplain fundamentally important concepts (Brown, 1992; Clement, 1993; Gentner, 1989; Hesse,1966; Hoffman, 1980; Lawson, 1993; Oppenheimer, 1956; Thagard, 1992; Venville & Treagust,

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 35, NO. 10, PP. 1129–1149 (1998)

© 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/98/101129-21

Correspondence to: S.M. GlynnContract grant sponsor: National Reading Research Center of University of Georgia and University of MarylandContract grant sponsor: U.S. Department of Education, contract grant number: PR/Award No. 117A20007

1997; Vosniadou & Ortony, 1989). The analogies serve as initial models for the concepts. It isnot surprising, therefore, that textbook authors use analogies to explain science concepts to stu-dents (Iding, 1997). Authors frequently preface their explanations with expressions such as“similarly,” “likewise,” “just as,” and “that is comparable to.” These expressions are all waysof saying, “Let me give you an analogy.”

Significance of the Study

The present study is significant because it directly responds to a need among science edu-cators for insight into the nature of analogies and guidance on how to construct ones that arepedagogically effective. Lawson (1993, p. 1213) expressed this need in a Journal of Researchin Science Teaching issue dedicated to this topic: “It follows then that a goal of science educa-tion research is to invent and evaluate the effectiveness of various sorts of analogies in the teach-ing of various theoretical concepts.” Thagard (1992, p. 537) similarly expressed this need byemphasizing the important role that analogy plays in science teaching and by highlighting theimportance of the following research question: “What kinds of analogies are likely to be mosteffective in increasing students’ understanding?”

Past Research on the Use of Analogies in Science Teaching

The present study builds upon existing findings (see reviews by Brown, 1993; Dagher,1995a, 1995b, 1994, 1993; Duit, 1991; Glynn, Duit & Thiele, 1995; Iding, 1997) and extendsthem by operationally defining and validating the concept of an elaborate analogy. This conceptcan potentially serve as a conceptual blueprint for insight into the nature of effective instruc-tional analogies and guidance on how to construct them. A consistent theme of the past researchfindings on analogies in science text has unfortunately been the very inconsistency of the analo-gies’ effectiveness. Sometimes analogies have facilitated text learning, and other times they havenot (Gilbert, 1989). It is argued here that this inconsistency is due largely to weak operationaldefinitions of analogies, to constructions of analogies that have failed to map analog featuressystematically onto target features, and to analogies that have largely ignored the important rolethat visual imagery can play in the learning process. In an elaborate analogy, analog featuresare systematically mapped onto target features, verbal and imagery processes are active, andthese processes mutually support one another.

Theoretical Framework

Ideally, analogies in text can help students to build meaningful relations between what theyalready know and what they are setting out to learn. In general, this activity of building rela-tions plays a critical role in constructivist views of learning science:

Learning science, therefore, should involve students in the construction of knowledge andthe creation of new ideas from what they already know. (Cavallo, 1996, p. 626; see alsoDriver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Yager, 1995)

In particular, this activity of building relations between existing knowledge and new knowledgeplays an important role when interpreting students’ learning as a process of conceptual change(Demastes, Good, & Peebles, 1996; Duit & Treagust, 1997; Hewson & Hewson, 1992; Strike& Posner, 1992). Increasingly, this change is being interpreted as students learning progressively

1130 GLYNN AND TAKAHASHI

more sophisticated mental models of fundamentally important science concepts (Cavallo, 1996;Glynn & Duit, 1995; Hafner & Stewart, 1995; Jensen & Finley, 1996; Penner, Giles, Lehrer, &Schauble, 1997; White, 1995). Typically, these concepts represent complex systems with inter-acting components (e.g., an atom, a cell, an electric circuit). In this theoretical framework, fa-miliar analogies (e.g., water is like electricity in some ways) can serve as early mental modelswhich students can use to form limited but meaningful understandings of these complex con-cepts. As the students’ develop cognitively and learn more science, they will evolve beyondthese simple situated analogies, adopting more sophisticated and powerful explanatory models(Glynn & Duit, 1995; Iding, 1997; Lehrer & Schauble, 1998).

Unfortunately, authors’ analogies are often ineffective, failing to increase students’ recall oftext information (Gilbert, 1989). That is because authors, lacking guidelines for using analogies,sometimes use them unsystematically, often causing confusion in students (Thiele & Treagust,1994). The distinctions among a target concept, features of the concept, examples of the con-cept, and an analogy become blurred in students’ minds. One solution, of course, would be toadvise authors not to use analogies in textbooks. That would be unrealistic because authors, likeall human beings, are predisposed to think analogically and they will use analogies, conscious-ly or unconsciously, during explanation (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Piaget, 1962). The better so-lution is to adopt guidelines for constructing and using analogies in science text. One source ofguidelines is the Teaching with Analogies Model (Glynn, 1991; Glynn et al., 1995; Harrison &Treagust, 1993; Thiele & Treagust, 1995).

In the Teaching with Analogies Model, an analogy is drawn by transferring ideas from a fa-miliar concept to an unfamiliar one. The familiar concept is called the analog and the unfamil-iar one the target. Both the analog and the target have features (or subconcepts). If the analogand the target share similar features, an analogy can be drawn between them. A systematic com-parison, verbally or visually, between the features of the analog and target is called a mapping.

The guidelines in the Teaching with Analogies Model were developed from task analyses(Glynn et al., 1995) of the analogies used in science textbooks by exemplary authors such asPaul Hewitt (1993). A task analysis is “the process of breaking down an instructional task to de-termine its essential components and the relationship of those components” (Goetz, Alexander,& Ash, 1992, p. 337; see also Ryder & Redding, 1993; Wiggs & Perez, 1988). The task analy-ses identified six guidelines for drawing analogies in science text: (a) Introduce the target con-cept, (b) remind readers of the analog concept, (c) identify relevant features of the target andanalog, (d) map similarities, (e) indicate where the analogy breaks down, and (f) draw conclu-sions.

Purpose of the Present Study

The purpose of the present study was to determine if the addition of an elaborate analogyto a science text could enhance middle school students’ learning of a major concept. An elabo-rate analogy was defined as one with both graphic and text components that integrate and mapkey features from an analog to a target concept. The elaborate analogy in the present study wasconstructed following the guidelines in the Teaching with Analogies Model. The role of the anal-ogy was to map a familiar, concrete schema (conceptual structure) onto a new, but in some wayssimilar, schema, thereby making the new schema more memorable.

The participants in the present study were middle school students. In the age range of 10–14years, important conceptual foundations for learning science are established (Helgeson, 1994,Spector & Gibson, 1991). The children progress from concrete, intuitive thinking to abstract,reflective thinking and begin to develop initial “mental models” of major science concepts

ANALOGY-ENHANCED SCIENCE TEXT 1131

(Carey, 1985; Glynn & Duit, 1995; Kuhn, Amsel, & O’Loughlin, 1988; Lawson, 1993; Piaget,1964). These initial models often take the form of analogies.

The animal cell was selected as the target concept to be learned by the students. The ani-mal cell represents a complex conceptual system that includes many interrelated functional parts(e.g., membrane, nucleus, and cytoplasm). In general, the cell plays a fundamental role in mid-dle school students’ understanding of life processes because it is the basic structural and func-tional unit of living things. A basic understanding of the cell is considered to be an essentialcomponent of scientific literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989,1993; Finley, Stewart, & Yarroch, 1982).

Experiment 1

In Experiment 1, eighth graders were asked to read either an analogy-enhanced text or astandard control text about the cell. The analogy-enhanced text compared an analog concept, afactory, to the target concept, the cell. It was expected that the mapping of the familiar, concretefactory features onto the less familiar, more abstract cell features would make the cell featuresmore meaningful and therefore more memorable. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that the elab-orate analogy would enhance the students’ recall of the target concept’s features, both immedi-ately after text study and 2 weeks later.

After text recall, the students were asked if the cell reminded them of anything, to exam-ine their awareness of analogies. It was expected that the students in the analogy-enhanced con-dition would be reminded primarily of the factory analogy, whereas the students in the controlcondition would be reminded of either various spontaneous analogies or no analogy.

Method

Participants

The participants were 58 eighth-grade students (33 boys and 25 girls) in three life scienceclasses of a middle school located in a university city in the southeast United States. All stu-dents were between 12 and 14 years old [mean (M) 5 13.59] and came from middle to uppersocioeconomic homes.

Design and Materials

The design included one between-subjects variable, text condition (control and analogy-en-hanced), and one within-subjects variable, retention interval (immediate and 2-weeks later). Inthe control condition, students read a 1,014-word text on the animal cell that was adapted froma unit on cells in a leading middle school textbook, General science (Alexander et al., 1989).This textbook was selected because its coverage of animal cells is typical of middle school text-books and because it included only one short analogy, comparing mitochondria to “powerhous-es.” This analogy was deleted, so as not to confound the experimental manipulation. The textand an accompanying diagram of an animal cell focused on seven of the major cell parts andtheir functions. These parts were the cell membrane, the nucleus, the cytoplasm, the ribosomes,the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi bodies, and the mitochondria. The following excerpt aboutthe cell membrane is representative of the text:


Although cells have a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, every cell has an outercovering. The covering that surrounds the cell is called the cell membrane. The structureof the cell membrane allows certain materials to pass through it and keep other materialsout. The cell membrane has tiny openings that let water, food, and oxygen enter the cell.Waste products exit through the cell membrane. The cell membrane prevents harmful sub-stances from entering and keeps useful substances inside.

In the experimental condition, students read an analogy-enhanced text that was created byadding an elaborate analogy to the standard text. The elaborate analogy was inserted in the be-ginning of the standard text, just after the introduction and the illustration of an animal cell. Theanalogy compared a factory (analog) to an animal cell (target concept)—this is a popular anal-ogy, often recommended in journals for teachers (e.g., Cavese, 1976; Glynn, 1995).

Following the Teaching with Analogies Model (Glynn & Duit, 1995), the analogy was con-structed to enhance the standard text and ensure that the following six operations were carriedout in this approximate order:

1. Introduce the target concept, the cell, to students.2. Remind students of what they know of the analog concept, a factory.3. Identify relevant features of the cell and a factory.4. Map similarities between the cell and a factory.5. Indicate where the analogy between the cell and a factory breaks down.6. Draw conclusions about the functions of cell structures.

The analogy used illustration (Figure 1) and text to identify seven corresponding features(parts) of the factory and cell, map the features, point out where the analogy breaks down, anddraw conclusions. The text component of the analogy explained to students:

You might think of a cell as a tiny factory that takes in raw materials, performs manytasks, and makes products. Different people in the factory work at machines doing dif-ferent jobs. Likewise, each part of the cell has a special job. Together, the parts keep thecell working properly. Here are some similarities between factory parts and cell parts:


Figure 1. Analogy drawn between a factory and an animal cell.

FACTORY ANIMAL CELL1. restricted entrance/exit membrane2. control center nucleus3. air inside the factory cytoplasm4. production machines protein-making ribosomes5. inside delivery and storage endoplasmic reticulum6. packaging and outside delivery Golgi apparatus7. power generators mitochondria

Think carefully about each of the above similarities and study the illustration. But re-member that this “factory-cell” analogy, like all analogies, breaks down in places. For ex-ample, the membrane envelops the entire cell and has many tiny openings, whereas a fac-tory has only a few entrances in specific locations. In general, however, if you rememberhow an animal cell is like a factory, it will be easier for you to remember the cell partsand their functions.

Measures

Retention. After text study and again 2 weeks later, all students were administered a recalltest that listed the seven major cell parts discussed in the text and asked the students to explain(in writing) the function of each.

Awareness of Analogy. After text recall and again 2 weeks later, students received the writ-ten question: “Did the way the cell works remind you of anything similar?” Students respond-ed (in writing) “yes” or “no” and were asked to “explain what it was that the cell reminded youof.” (The awareness of analogy question was asked after recall so it would not influence thestandard recall procedure. If the question were asked before recall, it could serve as a promptto think analogically.)

Procedure

Within each class, the students were randomly assigned to the experimental and control con-ditions and successively given a series of condition-appropriate booklets that contained instruc-tions, materials, and measures. Each booklet was allotted a specified period of time (see instructions) and was collected before the next booklet was distributed. All students indicatedthat they had enough time to complete the booklets, and none needed the additional time thatwas routinely offered. In their first booklet, which included the text, the students read the fol-lowing instructions:

In the next 25 minutes, please study the following text carefully and learn the parts of cellsand the functions of those parts. When you finish reading the text one time, please con-tinue to review it and study it until the time is up. After 25 minutes is up, the bookletswill be collected and you’ll be asked to recall, as best you can, the functions of the cellparts. Please study quietly.

In their second booklet, the students were given the recall test which consisted of the namesof the seven cell parts discussed in the text and the following instructions:


In the next 15 minutes, please explain as best you can, what the following cell parts do.It’s OK to explain in your own words and it’s OK to guess. Try to explain as much as youcan, and be as specific as you can. Write complete sentences. Think about what you readand saw in your text.

The students then were given the awareness of analogy question. Two weeks later, the studentsreceived a third booklet that once again contained the recall test, followed by the awareness ofanalogy question. The students were not informed in advance about this delayed recall test.

Scoring

The recall responses and the awareness of analogy responses were independently scored bytwo examiners. The examiners’ scores were then compared. There was an interrater reliabilityof r 5 .96 on the recall responses. Students received one point for each correctly recalled cellpart function. Disagreements between the examiners on the recall responses were resolved bydiscussion. There was complete agreement on the awareness of analogy responses.

Results and Discussion

Data Analyses

A 2 3 2 analysis of variance with one between-subjects variable, text condition, and onewithin-subjects variable, retention interval, was conducted to examine students’ retention of textinformation, as measured by their recall scores. Next, chi-square tests of independence wereconducted to examine students’ awareness of analogies, as measured by their “yes” or “no” an-swers when asked whether a cell’s workings reminded them of anything similar. These 2 3 2chi-square tests included two variables, text condition and students’ answers (yes/no), and wereperformed for each retention interval. Finally, tests using Student’s t statistic were used to examine the number of features in students’ analogies in the two text conditions, at each reten-tion interval. In all data analyses, a Type 1 error probability of a , .05 was used to test hy-pothesized effects.

Students’ Retention of Information

After text study and again 2 weeks later, the students’ retention of text information was as-sessed by asking the students to recall the functions of seven major parts of the cell. The po-tential range of scores was from zero to seven. The group means and standard deviations are re-ported in Table 1.

The effects of text condition and retention interval on recall scores were examined using ananalysis of variance. The results indicated that the students who studied analogy-enhanced texthad significantly higher recall scores (M 5 6.00) than the students who studied the control text(M 5 4.90), F(1, 56) 5 7.96, p 5 .007, mean standard error (MSE) 5 4.44. The immediate re-call scores (M 5 5.59) and the 2-week recall scores (M 5 5.31) did not differ significantly, F(1,56) 5 3.61, p 5 .063, MSE 5 0.61. The interaction effect also was not statistically significant,F , 1.

These findings support the view that the elaborate analogy mapped features of a familiar,concrete analog onto features of the target concept, thereby making the target concept more


memorable to students. In addition, the findings suggest that the retention advantage associatedwith the elaborate analogy is fairly durable. This advantage was apparent both immediately af-ter text study and 2 weeks later.

Students’ Awareness of Analogies

The students were asked whether a cell’s workings reminded them of anything similar. Thestudents who answered “yes” then explained what it was. These data are summarized in Tables2 and 3, respectively.

After text study, the number of students who answered “yes” was 28 (97%) in the analo-gy-enhanced text condition and 26 (90%) in the control text condition—these numbers wereequivalent, x2(1, N 5 58) 5 1.07, p 5 .30. Each student who answered “yes” in the analogy-enhanced condition reported either one or two analogies (M 5 1.11). The analogies and theirfrequencies were: “a factory” (23 of the 31 analogies), “the human body” (3), “a team” (2), “abusiness” (1), “a movie studio” (1), and “the universe” (1). Each student who answered “yes”in the control condition also reported one or two analogies (M 5 1.08). These analogies andtheir frequencies were: “the human body” (16 of the 28 analogies), “a factory” (3), “society”(2), “the digestive system” (2), “a building” (1), “a house” (1), “a hospital” (1), “a clock” (1),


Table 1Eighth graders’ recall of cell information as a function of text condition and retention interval

Retention Interval

Text Condition After Text Study 2 Weeks Later Row M

Analogy-enhancedM 6.07 5.93 6.00SD 1.16 1.22

ControlM 5.10 4.69 4.90SD 1.93 1.87

Column M 5.59 5.31

Table 2Number of eighth graders who were reminded of an analogy as a function of text condition and retention interval

Retention Interval

Text Condition After Text Study 2 Weeks Later

Analogy-enhancedYes, reminded 28 29No, not reminded 1 0

ControlYes, reminded 26 26No, not reminded 3 3

Note. N 5 29 in each text condition.

and “the rain and rock cycles” (1). Highly similar analogies were grouped together. For exam-ple, the “human body” group included a “person” analogy and a “human being” analogy.

Two weeks later, the students again were asked whether a cell’s workings reminded themof anything similar. The number of students who answered “yes” was 29 (100%) in the analo-gy-enhanced text condition and 26 (90%) in the control text condition—these numbers were notsignificantly different, x2(1, N 5 58) 5 3.16, p 5 .076. Each student who answered “yes” inthe analogy-enhanced condition reported either one or two analogies (M 5 1.24). The analogiesand their frequencies were: “a factory” (25 of the 36 analogies), “the earth” (8), “a team” (2),and “the human body” (1). Each student who reported “yes” in the control condition reportedone analogy—these were “a human body” (10 of the 26 analogies), “the earth” (8), “a factory”(4), “society” (2), “the rock cycle” (1), and “an animal” (1). It is noteworthy that the “earth”analogy was not reported immediately after text study but was reported 2 weeks later by a num-


Table 3Samples of eighth graders’ response to the question, “What does a cell remind you of?”

Analogy-Enhanced Condition

Taylor’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of a factory because every part has its own job. The cellmembrane is like the entrance. The nucleus is like the control room. the ribosomes are like machinesthat make proteins. The endoplasmic reticulum is like a conveyor belt and the Golgi bodies are likepackaging machines.”

Andrea’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of a factory because its parts can be compared to theparts of a factory: the cell membrane to the factory walls and guards, the nucleus to the control area ofthe factory, the cytoplasm to the air inside the factory, the endoplasmic reticulum to a conveyor belt in afactory, and the mitochondria the factory’s source of power.”

Ben’s factory analogy: “The cell could remind you of a working factory, since a factory has similar partssuch as the nucleus and the boss or command center. It also has parts similar to cytoplasm, mitochon-dria, and ribosomes.”

Patrick’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of a factory. They have many parts that are alike. Forexample, ther ribosomes are like the machines that take raw materials and turn them into a product. Theendoplasmic reticulum is like the conveyor belts that take the product and get it packaged, like the Gol-gi bodies.”

Martin’s factory analogy: “The cell remindes me of a factory. Everything has a job or a purpose. It al-most seems like the cell’s nucleus is a brain.”

Control Condition

Anne’s human body analogy: “The function of a cell reminds me of the function of the entire body. Allthe parts work together to make the whole function successful.”

Robert’s society analogy: “The way the cell parts work together in order to help the cell reminds me ofsociety since eveyone is different and has different jobs in life, but have a common goals to fulfill oflife, love, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jenny’s hospital analogy: “The cell reminds me of a hospital. You have many people (organelles) thatwork together to help you and your body.”

Ricky’s clock analogy: “The way a cell works reminds me of a machine because everything works al-most like a clock works.”

William’s no analogy response: “The cell doesn’t remind me of anything else. If it reminds me of any-thing, its the cell.”

Note. For readability, the students’ spelling and punctuation errors have been corrected.

ber of students in both conditions. These students explained that during the retention interval,one of the lessons taught by their teacher emphasized that the earth is an ecological system withinteracting parts. This lesson inspired these students to compare the earth with the cell.

In summary, these findings indicate that almost all eighth graders were reminded of an anal-ogy of some sort when studying about the cell’s workings. Almost all analogies were reason-able in that they represented systems with interrelated parts that work together. As expected, thestudents in the analogy-enhanced condition were reminded most often of a factory. The studentsin the control condition reported a wide variety of analogies, with the human body being themost frequent.

A close examination of the analogies revealed that some included more cell features thanothers. For example, Taylor’s factory analogy (Table 3) correctly maps five cell features: mem-brane/entrance, nucleus/control room, ribosomes/protein machines, endoplasmic reticulum/conveyor belt, and Golgi bodies/packaging machines. This amount of detail can be viewed asa measure of analogy quality, although a limited one because students were not explicitly askedto include features in their explanations. Tests using Student’s t statistic indicated that after textstudy, students in the analogy-enhanced condition included more correct features (M 5 3.68) intheir analogies than students in the control condition (M 5 2.71) and that this was again thecase 2 weeks later (M 5 3.51 and 2.14, respectively), both ps , 05. These findings, with amountof detail as the criterion, suggest that the analogies of students in the analogy-enhanced condi-tion were of higher quality than those of students in the control condition.

Even the “factory” analogies spontaneously generated by some students in the control con-dition were less detailed than those reported by students in the in the analogy-enhanced condi-tion. For example, Zack and Phillip, two students in the control condition, spontaneously gen-erated the following factory analogies:

The cell sort of reminds me of a factory. Everybody has a different job, and when they doit right, everything goes smoothly. (Zack)It reminds me of a factory. Each area has a different thing to do and it kind of works in afactory format. (Phillip)

Now compare Zack and Phillip’s factory analogies to those of Janet and Greg, students in theanalogy-enhanced condition:

The cell reminds me of a factory. Each part of the cell has its similarities to a factory. Thecell membrane are the doors. The nucleus runs things. The Golgi bodies package stuff,etc. I think that the analogy helped me to remember. The analogy of a factory to a cell.(Janet)The cell reminds me of a factory because the nucleus is the main control center, the cellmembrane is the walls, the mitochondria is the factory part that makes things (food), theendoplasmic reticulum is the machine that transports the food and the Golgi bodies iswhere it is stored. (Greg)

Janet and Greg’s analogies had depth—they explicitly identified and mapped a number of cellfeatures to a factory. Zack and Phillip’s spontaneous factory analogies were insightful but vaguein comparison to Janet and Greg’s.

Experiment 2

Experiment 2 replicated and extended Experiment 1, with younger students—sixth graders.As in Experiment 1, it was expected that the mapping of the more familiar, concrete analog onto


the less familiar, more abstract target would make the target more memorable. It was thereforehypothesized that the elaborate analogy would facilitate the sixth graders’ retention of the tar-get concept’s features.

In this experiment, two measures of retention were used: recall (as in Experiment 1) andrecognition (matching). A recognition measure was added because it is a more sensitive mea-sure of retention than recall and is often more suitable for younger students, such as these sixthgraders, than the more cognitively demanding recall procedure (Searleman & Herrmann, 1994).

As in Experiment 1, the students were asked whether the cell reminded them of anything.It was expected that the students in the analogy-enhanced condition would be primarily re-minded of the factory analogy, whereas students in the control condition would be reminded of various spontaneous analogies or no analogy. These students, because they were sixth grad-ers, were expected to generate fewer spontaneous analogies than the eighth graders in Experi-ment 1.

In this experiment, the students were asked to rate the target concept in terms of its inter-est, importance, and understandability. They did this before text study, afterward, and 2 weekslater. It was expected that the mapping of the analog onto the less familiar, more abstract targetwould induce the students in the analogy-enhanced condition to perceive the target as more in-teresting, important, and understandable than the students in the control condition.

Method

Participants

The participants were 32 sixth-grade students (18 boys and 14 girls) in two life scienceclasses from the same middle school as Experiment 1. All students were between 10 and 12years old (M 5 11.67) and came from middle to upper socioeconomic homes.

Design and Materials

The design included one between-subjects variable, text condition (control and analogy-enhanced), and one within-subjects variable, retention interval (immediate and 2 weeks later).The control text and the analogy-enhanced text were identical to those used in Experiment 1.

Measures

Questionnaire. Before text study, after text study, and again 2 weeks later, the sixth gradersresponded to three items. The first item was, “How interesting a topic do you think the cell is,compared to other topics in life science?” The response alternatives were on a Likert-type, 5-point scale that included “not interesting,” “a little interesting,” “somewhat interesting,” “inter-esting,” and “very interesting.” The second item was, “How important do you think it is to un-derstand the cell, compared to other topics in life science?” The response alternatives were “notimportant,” “a bit important,” “somewhat important,” “important,” and “very important.” Thethird item was, “How well do you understand the cell, compared to other topics in life science?”The response alternatives were “not well,” “a little bit,” “somewhat,” “well,” and “very well.”

Retention. After the questionnaire and text study, all students were administered a recalltest that was identical to that used in Experiment 1. It listed the seven major cell parts discussed


in the text and asked the students to explain (in writing) the function of each. The recall test wasthen collected and the students were administered a recognition test that listed the seven majorcell parts and asked the students to match those parts to provided statements of cell-part func-tions. Two weeks later, the students again were given the the recall test and the recognition test.

Awareness of Analogy. After the recognition text and again 2 weeks later, the students re-ceived the same question asked in Experiment 1: “Did the way the cell works remind you ofanything similar?” Students responded (in writing) “yes” or “no” and were asked to “explainwhat it was that the cell reminded you of.”

Procedure

The procedure was similar to that in Experiment 1. Within each class, the students wererandomly assigned to the experimental and control conditions and successively given a seriesof condition-appropriate booklets. In their first booklet, all students responded to the three-itemquestionnaire about interest, importance, and understandability of the topic. Then, the studentsread the instructions reported in Experiment 1 and studied a text.

In their second booklet, the students were again given the questionnaire, with these in-structions: “Think about what you read and saw in your text about the cell, when you answerthe questions. You do not have to put the same answers that you put before—it’s OK to changeyour mind.” After the questionnaire, the students were given the recall test and the instructionsreported previously.

In their third booklet, the students were given the recognition text which consisted of thenames of seven cell parts and a randomized list of the seven cell-part functions as described inthe text. The students were instructed to match the cell parts to their functions by writing thecell part name next to each function. The students then responded to the awareness of analogyquestion.

Two weeks later, the students received a fourth booklet that once again contained, a ques-tionnaire and a recall test. The students then received a fifth booklet that contained a recogni-tion test, followed by the awareness of analogy question. The students were not informed in ad-vance of these tests.

Scoring

All measures were independently scored by two examiners, and their sets of scores werethen compared. There was complete agreement on the responses to the questionnaire, the aware-ness of analogy measure, and the recognition measure. There was an interrater reliability of r5 .93 on the recall measure; the disagreements between the examiners on this measure were re-solved by discussion.

Results and Discussion

Data Analyses

An analysis of variance similar to that described in Experiment 1 was conducted to exam-ine the effects of text condition and retention interval on students’ retention of text information.Analyses of covariance were then conducted to examine the effects of text condition and reten-


tion interval on interest, importance, and difficulty ratings, respectively. In each analysis of co-variance, the corresponding before-study ratings served as a covariate. Next, chi-square testssimilar to those described in Experiment 1 were conducted to examine students’ awareness ofanalogies. Finally, tests using Student’s t statistic were used to compare the number of featuresin students’ analogies in the two text conditions, at each retention interval. In all data analyses,a Type 1 error probability of a , .05 was used to test hypothesized effects.

Students’ Retention of Information

After text study and again 2 weeks later, the students’ retention of information was assessed,first by asking the students to recall the functions of seven major cell parts, and second, by ask-ing the students to recognize (by matching) the seven parts with their functions. In both mea-sures, the potential range of scores was from zero to seven. The effects of text condition and re-tention interval on recall and recognition scores were examined using analyses of variance. Thegroup means and standard deviations are reported in Tables 4 and 5.

The students who studied the analogy-enhanced text had significantly higher recall scores(M 5 4.85) than those who studied the control text (M 5 2.88), F(1, 30) 5 14.51, p , .001,MSE 5 4.27. In addition, the immediate recall scores were significantly higher (M 5 4.50) thanthe 2-week recall scores (M 5 3.22), F(1, 30) 5 52.2, p , .001, MSE 5 0.50. The interactionwas not statistically significant, F , 1.

The recognition results were similar to the recall results. The students who studied the anal-ogy-enhanced text had significantly higher recognition scores (M 5 5.25) than those who stud-ied the control text (M 5 3.76), F(1, 30) 5 11.13, p 5 .002, MSE 5 3.23, and the immediaterecognition scores were significantly higher (M 5 5.19) than the 2-week recognition scores (M5 3.82), F(1, 30) 5 44.27, p , .001, MSE 5 0.68. The interaction effect was not statisticallysignificant, F(1, 30) 5 3.29, p 5 .080, MSE 5 0.68.

Taken together, the recall and recognition findings are consistent with the view that the elab-orate analogy mapped features of a familiar, concrete analog onto features of the target, there-by making the target more memorable to students. As was the case in Experiment 1, the find-ings suggest that the retention advantage associated with the elaborate analogy was a durableone, at least over the 2-week interval used in this study. The findings also suggest that the elab-orate analogy had a greater effect on sixth graders’ retention than on that of eighth graders. Acomparison of main effect sizes in the two experiments indicated that the elaborate analogy ac-counted for almost three times more variance in sixth graders’ recall (v2 5 .30) than in eighthgraders’ recall (v2 5 .11).


Table 4Sixth-graders’ recall of cell information as a function of text condition and retention interval

Retention Interval



ControlM 3.56 2.19 2.88SD 1.36 1.33

Column M 4.50 3.22

Students’ Importance, Interest, and Difficulty Ratings

Before text study, immediately after text study, and again 2 weeks later, the students ratedthe target concept in terms of importance, interest, and understandability. Analyses of covari-ance were used to examine the effects of text condition and retention interval on interest, im-portance, and difficulty ratings, respectively. In each analysis, the corresponding before-studyratings served as a covariate. The adjusted mean ratings after text study and 2 weeks later arereported in Table 6.

The interest ratings from students who studied the analogy-enhanced text (M 5 3.01) tend-ed to be higher than those from students who studied the control text (M 5 2.55), but the dif-ference was not statistically significant, F(1, 29) 5 3.75, p 5 .063, MSE 5 0.90. The effects ofthe retention interval and the interaction were not significant, both Fs , 1.

The importance ratings from students who studied the analogy-enhanced text (M 5 3.79)and students who studied the control text (M 5 3.53) did not differ significantly, F(1, 29) 51.31, p 5 .26, MSE 5 0.79. Likewise, the effects of the retention interval, F , 1, and the in-teraction, F(1, 29) 5 2.51, p 5 .12, MSE 5 0.24, were not significant.

The understandability ratings from students who studied the analogy-enhanced text (M 52.96) were significantly higher than those from students who studied the control text (M 5 2.32),


Table 5Sixth-graders’ recognition of cell information as a function of text condition and retention interval

Retention Interval



ControlM 4.63 2.88 3.76SD 1.36 1.26

Column M 5.19 3.82

Table 6Sixth-graders’ interest, importance, and difficulty adjusted mean ratings as a function of text conditionand retention interval

Retention Interval


Analogy-enhancedInterest 3.23 2.79 3.01Importance 3.78 3.79 3.79Understandability 3.17 2.75 2.96

ControlInterest 2.90 2.21 2.55Importance 3.72 3.34 3.53Understandability 2.64 2.00 2.32

Note. The means were adjusted on the basis of the students’ before-study ratings.

F(1, 29) 5 6.58, p 5 .016, MSE 5 1.01. The effects of the retention interval and the interac-tion were not significant, both Fs , 1.

In conclusion, the questionnaire findings indicate that students in the analogy-enhancedcondition perceived the target concept to be more understandable than students in the controlcondition. These findings suggest that understandability may play a role as a key mechanism,or intervening variable, by which the elaborate analogy influences students’ retention. Studentsin the analogy-enhanced condition understood the target concept better and therefore remem-bered it better.

Students’ Awareness of Analogies

The students were asked if a cell’s workings reminded them of anything similar. The stu-dents answering “yes” then explained what it was that a cell reminded them of. These data aresummarized in Tables 7 and 8.

After text study, the number of students who answered “yes” was 16 (100%) in the analo-gy-enhanced text condition and only 6 (38%) in the control text condition—this difference wasstatistically significant, x2(1, N 5 32) 5 14.55, p , .001. Each student who reported “yes” inthe analogy-enhanced condition reported either one or two analogies (M 5 1.06). The analogiesand their frequencies were: “a factory” (13 of the 17 analogies), “a business” (1), “a car” (1),“an airport” (1), and “an egg” (1). Each student who answered “yes” in the control conditionreported one analogy—these were “a factory” (2 of the 6 analogies), “the human body” (2), “theatom” (1), and “a store” (1).

Two weeks later, the students again were asked whether a cell’s workings reminded themof anything similar. The number of students who answered “yes” was again 16 (100%) in theanalogy-enhanced text condition and 6 (38%) in the control text condition, x2(1, N 5 32) 514.55, p , .001. Each student who answered “yes” in the analogy-enhanced condition report-ed either one or two analogies (M 5 1.13). The analogies and their frequencies were: “a facto-ry” (14 of the 18 analogies), “a car” (1), “a restaurant” (1), “a toy” (1), and “an egg” (1). Eachstudent who reported “yes” in the control condition reported one analogy—these were “a hu-man body” (3 of the 6 analogies), “a factory” (1), “an atom” (1), and “a store” (1).

In summary, all the students in the analogy-enhanced condition were reminded of an anal-ogy; however, only a minority of students in the control condition were reminded of one. Thisfinding, with sixth graders, contrasts sharply with that of Experiment 1, with eighth graders. Al-


Table 7Number of sixth-graders who were reminded of an analogy as a function oftext condition and retention interval

Retention Interval

Text Condition After Text Study 2 Weeks Later

Analogy-enhancedYes, reminded 16 16No, not reminded 0 0

ControlYes, reminded 6 6No, not reminded 10 10

Note. N 5 16 in each text condition.

most all the eighth graders, regardless of which condition they were in, were reminded of ananalogy. It appears, therefore, that the cognitive development of middle school students playsan important role in their spontaneous generation of analogies during learning.

In other respects, the findings of Experiment 2 paralleled those of Experiment 1: namely,the students in the analogy-enhanced condition were reminded most often of a factory, but re-ported several other analogies as well. As can be seen in Table 8, these other analogies and thosereported in the control condition were reasonable in that they represented systems with interre-lated parts that work together. Tests using Student’s t statistic indicated that after text study, stu-dents in the analogy-enhanced condition included more correct features (M 5 3.16) in theiranalogies than students in the control condition (M 5 2.11), and that this was again the case 2weeks later (M 5 2.73 and 1.32, respectively), both ps , .05. As in Experiment 1, these find-ings suggest that analogies of students in the analogy-enhanced condition were of higher qual-ity than those of students in the control condition.

General Discussion

The present study examined the role that an elaborate analogy can play when middle schoolstudents learn a major concept from a science text. The analog was a factory and the target con-cept was the animal cell. By mapping the features of the relatively concrete, familiar analogonto the more abstract, less familiar target, the analogy presumably acted as a mediator andmade the corresponding features of the target more understandable and therefore memorable.


Table 8Samples of sixth graders’ responses to the question, “What does a cell remind you of?”

Analogy-Enhanced Condition

Lindsay’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of a factory. The nucleus is the director. The cell mem-brane is the guards. The Golgi bodies are the different stations that people work at.”

Olivia’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of a small factory because there are many things to do tomake it work.” The membrane is like the door and the nucleus is the command center.

Amy’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of factory. Because each part carries out a task like ma-chines in a real factory.” The nucleus is in charge. The ribosomes are machines that produce things.

Julian’s factory analogy: “The cell reminds me of a factory because all the parts of a cell have to worktogether and if one part screws up then the whole cell messes up.”

Stevie’s factory analogy: “A cell is like a factory. Different parts have different job, just like in a facto-ry.”

Control Condition

Joe’s atom analogy: “The cell kind of reminds me of an atom. I think that the atom has a nucleus aswell.”

Bryan’s human body analogy: “The cell reminds me of a human body because of how everything workstogether.”

Jerry’s person analogy: “The cell reminds me of a person. The nucleus is like a brain. The cell mem-brane is like the mouth.”

Rachel’s store analogy: “The cell reminds me of a store, with the nucleus the manager.”

Gwen’s no analogy response: “It doesn’t remind me of anything in particular.”

Note. For readability, the students’ spelling and punctuation errors have been corrected.

The analogy facilitated students’ recall of target features both immediately after text study and2 weeks later. Thus, the effect of the analogy was a stable one.

Although both eighth graders and sixth graders benefited from the elaborate analogy, thesixth graders benefited more. The sixth graders’ relative level of cognitive development mostlikely accounted for this difference. Sixth graders are often in a transition between concrete, in-tuitive thinking and more abstract, reflective thinking (Carey, 1985; Kuhn et al., 1988; Lawson,1993; Metz, 1995; Piaget, 1964). The analogy provided both a conceptual foundation and abridge to understanding the relatively abstract, less familiar target concept.

The eighth graders benefited as well from the concrete instructional support that the elab-orate analogy afforded, but they appeared to be less dependent on it, as evidenced by their spon-taneous analogies. Almost all the eighth graders in the no-analogy control condition thought ofvarious analogies for the target, but only a minority of sixth graders did. One explanation forthis finding is that some of the sixth graders simply lacked the content-area knowledge theyneeded to generate analogies. However, another explanation is also possible: It may be that someof the sixth graders had the content-area knowledge to construct analogies, but not the metacog-nitive awareness to strategically do so. In a review of the development of strategy use in chil-dren, Pressley and McCormick (1995) concluded: “When given a memory task, students oftenfail to use a memory strategy that they could use if given a small amount of instruction abouthow to apply the strategy to the task in question” (p. 29). Thus, it may be that some of the sixthgraders in the present study could have constructed analogies if they were taught how to do so.This is certainly a promising direction for future research; however, caution is called for. If thesixth graders in question are not developmentally ready to learn an analogy-construction strat-egy, they might learn it by rote and be unable to apply it in other situations.

The students’ analogies in the analogy-enhanced condition were of better quality than thoseof students in the control condition, with quality defined in terms of the number of correct fea-tures. However, the spontaneous analogies of students in the control condition were neverthe-less quite reasonable and insightful. Most of these analogies described systems with functional,interacting parts (e.g., the human body, a team, and society) and were based on concepts in thestudents’ daily lives.

In terms of practical implications, the findings of this study clearly support the use of analo-gies in middle school textbooks. Previous findings often have been negative or confoundedmethodologically, providing little support (e.g., Bean, Searles, Singer, & Cowen, 1990; Gilbert,1989). The present findings suggest that text analogies need to be carefully thought out to beeffective. The elaborate analogy in the present study was crafted to perform six operations forstudents: introduce the target, remind students about the analog, identify relevant features, mapsimilarities, indicate where the analogy breaks down, and draw conclusions. These operationsprovided a blueprint for constructing an elaborate analogy about the cell. These operations areequally well suited for explaining many other relatively complex science concepts (e.g., theatom, the human eye, and an electric circuit) that are routinely introduced to students in the mid-dle grades. By following these operations, the textbook author can increase the likelihood thatan analogy will be productive.

If an analogy is not used carefully, it can be counterproductive, causing students to formmisconceptions (Duit, 1991; Glynn et al., 1995; Thiele & Treagust, 1994). For this reason, thestudents in the present study were warned that the factory analogy, like all analogies, breaksdown in places (e.g., a factory has only a few entrances, whereas a membrane has many tinyopenings). This warning was apparently effective because no analogy-based misconceptions(e.g., the “floor” of the cell) were detected in the recall of students who received the elaborateanalogy.


In terms of theoretical implications, the findings of this study suggest that analogies playan important role in the meaningful learning of science text, particularly when learning is in-terpreted from a constructivist perspective (e.g., Cavallo, 1996; Demastes et al., 1996; Yager,1995). The students’ adoption of the elaborate analogy and their generation of spontaneousanalogies represented efforts by the students to connect familiar schemas with new ones—thesewere efforts to make learning meaningful. Meaningful text learning is, from this perspective, re-lational and constructive in nature, not rote (Holliday, Yore, & Alvermann, 1994; Glynn & Muth,1994; Mayer, 1989; Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994). It involves integrating existing knowl-edge with new knowledge to develop mental models that function as explanatory tools (Glynn& Duit, 1995). For middle school students, carefully crafted analogies can serve as initial men-tal models. As the students develop cognitively and learn more knowledge, they will adopt moresophisticated models.

The present study had at least two limitations that should be addressed in future studies.One concerns the familiarity of the students with the analog concept, a factory. Although all stu-dents reported that they were familiar with a factory, it is likely that some were more familiarthan others. Random assignment to conditions controlled for this variable; however, it would beuseful in future studies to precisely assess the students’ familiarity with the analog by means ofa rating scale. The degree of familiarity could then be taken into account when analyzing andinterpreting data. A second limitation of the present study is that the students received only oneelaborate analogy—the “cell is like a factory.” As noted previously, this is a very popular anal-ogy often recommended in journals for teachers; however, additional elaborate analogies (e.g.,the eye is like a camera) should be developed and examined in future studies to determine howwell the present findings generalize.

Another direction for future research involves teaching middle school students the opera-tions used to craft an elaborate analogy. In light of the effectiveness of the elaborate analogy inthe present study, it is well worth the effort to develop strategies by which students can con-struct and refine their own analogies and become more autonomous in their meaningful learn-ing of science text. An elaborate analogy represents an instructional tool that can promote mean-ingful text learning by building a conceptual bridge between students’ existing knowledge andthe new knowledge they are setting out to learn.

The work reported here was prepared with partial support to the first author from the National Read-ing Research Center (NRRC) of the University of Georgia and University of Maryland. It was supportedunder the Educational Research and Development Centers Program (PR/Award No. 117A20007) as ad-ministered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Thefindings and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the NationalReading Research Center, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, or the U.S. Departmentof Education.

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Learning from analogy-enhanced science text