The role of objectives in guiding the organization of information learned from text

CONTF.MPORARY FnlJCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 7, 15-25 (1982)

The Role of Objectives in Guiding the Organization of Information Learned from Text

ELLEN D. GAGN~ AND BRUCE K. BRITTON Ur2ikvr.sil.v of Georgiu

This study was designed to identify how objectives influence the organization of the information recalled from text. Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) that objectives affect the sequence of attention to information in text, (2) that they affect the sequence in which information is rehearsed during a review period, or (3) that they serve as a set of cues at retrieval. One hundred college students read objectives either before or after reading a passage (varying the opportunity for objectives to affect the sequence of attention). They then either had or did not have a review period (varying the opportunity to use objectives to sequence rehearsal and also varying the presence of the objectives in memory at the time of retrieval). One hundred more students read the passage in control conditions with objectives available throughout the reading or with no objectives available. Results showed that students given objectives after reading but before a review period had more clustering by objectives in free recall than did those who never saw objectives, sup- porting the hypothesis that organization by objectives occurs during rehearsal. No evidence was found to support the notion that organization by objectives occurs during encoding or retrieval phases.

The way we organize information learned from text has important implications for the long-term utility of that information. If the superordinate topics named in our organization match naturally occurring cues then we are likely to activate the information in appropriate contexts. Information organization also affects what inferences we are likely to draw (Frase, 1973; Hayes-Roth & Thorndyke, 1979).

Sometimes the organization of a text is not the best one for transfer to real-life settings or for inference-making. In such cases, it would be useful for teachers to provide objectives to the student that reflect a more useful organization. Gag&, Bing, and Bing (1977) found that providing readers with objectives whose organization differs from the text’s organization did in fact change the clustering of information produced on a test of free recall. The clustering obtained tended to match the topical sequence of the objectives that had been provided even when that sequence differed from the text sequence.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. Ellen D. Gagnt at the Department of Educa- tional Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602. Portions of this study were reported at the Southeastern Psychological Association Convention, Atlanta, Ga. 1978. Portions were written while the first author was supported by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow- ship at Carnegie-Mellon University. We appreciate the comments provided by Michael S. Bell and Don Yarbrough on an earlier draft of this paper.

15 0361-476x182/010015-11$02.00/0 Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press. Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

16 GAGNi AND BRITTON

Unfortunately, the Gag& et al. (1977) study provided no insight into the reason for the effect of objectives on the sequencing of information at recall. Hence, the present study was designed to identify an explanation for the effect of objectives on clustering of information in free recall.

A variety of explanations seems plausible. First, objectives may exert their influence by producing changes in the sequencing of attention to text elements. That is, the reader may skim the text to find objective-relevant information in the order in which the objectives occur. Information is then stored and retrieved in the order in which it was attended to. This explanation will be referred to as the attention-ordering hypothesis. (Notice that this hypothesis is different from a selective attention hypothesis which states that readers given objectives attend more to objective- relevant material than readers not given objectives and thus recall a greater proportion of objective-relevant information. The selective attention hypothesis explains the proportion of objective-relevant to incidental recall, while the attention-ordering hypothesis explains the sequence in which objective-relevant information is recalled.)

Another possible explanation of the effect of objectives on organization is that, although readers initially encode information in an order that is not influenced by objectives, they later rehearse it in the order suggested by the objectives and thus reorganize the way it is stored in memory. This explanation will be referred to as the rehearsal-ordering hypothesis.

Finally, a third possible explanation is that, although readers both encode and rehearse information in an order not influenced by the objectives, they use the objectives list to cue retrieval and thus the output sequence matches the sequence given in the list of objectives. This explanation will be referred to as the retrieval-ordering hypothesis.

It was the purpose of the present study to empirically distinguish among these hypotheses by creating experimental conditions that would lead to different predictions depending on whether attention, rehearsal, or retrieval was the process most influenced by the organization of the objectives. To determine whether or not objectives influence attention and retrieval, respectively, some groups saw the list of objectives just prior to reading, while others did not see the list until after reading. For groups that saw the list of objectives before reading, attention-ordering by objectives was possible. For groups that saw the list of objectives only after reading, attention-ordering by objectives was not possible, but retrieval- ordering was. To determine the role of objectives in rehearsal, half of the groups had a review period following reading, while half did not. For groups with a review period after reading and after seeing the list of objectives, rehearsal-ordering by objectives was possible.

In addition to the groups just described, reference groups read the

ROLE OF OBJECTIVES 17

passage without the objectives or with objectives available the entire time.

METHOD

Subjects. Subjects were 200 undergraduate students from introductory psychology classes. Participation in studies was required for course credit but students were free to choose from several studies the ones which they preferred.

ikfaterials. The same text as was used in the Gag& ef al. (1977) study was used in the present study. It was a IO-page, 2400-word passage describing an imaginary solar system and the characteristics of three of its planets and the animals on these planets. Thus, the passage had six main topics, occurring in the following sequence: Planet 1, the animals on Planet 1, Planet 2, the animals on Planet 2, Planet 3, and the animals on Planet 3.

The objectives list referred to the same information as that referred to by the objectives used in the study by Gagne e( al. (1977). The ordering of these objectives was the same as the Topic Organization in that study. The list contained I9 objectives that could be met by reading and comprehending 19 of the 237 text propositions. All objectives were of a factual, detailed nature. An example of an objective is: “Be able to tell the color of Partis.” This objective could be met by comprehending and recalling the following proposition from a paragraph about the planet Partis: “Ozone gives a bluish glow to the planet.”

The objectives occurred in the following sequence: Objectives l-4 requested information about Planet 1, objectives 5-g referred to the animals on Planet 1, objectives 9- 11 referred to Planet 2, objectives 12- 15 referred to the animals on Planet 2, objectives 16- 17 referred to Planet 3, and objectives 18- I9 referred to the animals on Planet 3.

Design. Students were randomly assigned to one of eight groups, four experimental and four reference groups. The four experimental groups were formed by crossing the times when objectives were seen (for 3 min immediately before or immediately after a IO-min reading period) and the presence of a IO-min review period after reading (present or absent). The groups so formed were named Before No Review, Before Review, After No Review, and After Review (see Table 1).

Of the four reference groups, two read the passage for either 13 or 23 min with the objectives list available at all times (Always I3 and Always 23), and two read the passage (for 13 or 23 mitt) with no objectives list (Never 13 and Never 23). The 13 and 23-min periods correspond to the total times used in the experimental groups, without and with review periods, respectively. Thus, the reference groups had the same overall reading time as their corresponding experimental groups, but their activities were not broken up into special times for reading objectives, reviewing, or reading the passage. The reference groups were included for the purpose of comparing the experimental groups with groups reading under more typical study conditions

Timing. The timing for the various phases of the reading and review was based on observations made during the Gag& er al. (1977) study. Specifically, subjects in that study had been given a total reading time of 25 min. The majority of subjects in that study appeared to complete reading the list of objectives within 3 min, took roughly 11 min for an initial reading of the passage, and spent about 11 min reviewing or rereading. Since our purpose was to explain the clustering results obtained in that study, we chose time limits that had occurred naturally during uninterrupted study of the passage.

Directions. All groups were instructed to read and study the passage for a test. Groups given an objectives list were told, at the time the objectives were provided, that the objectives “tell you what you will be expected to know for the test.”

When the objectives list was provided to the experimental groups, they were told that they

18 CAGNE AND BRITTON

TABLE 1 THE SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES FOR EACH EXPERIMENTAL AND EACH REFERENCE GROUP

Experimental groups

No Review

Objectives Objectives Before After

Read objectives Read passage for for 3 min 10 min

Read passage Read objectives for 10 min for 3 min

Filler task Filler task for 1 min for 1 min

Free recall Free recall

Reference groups

13 Min

Objectives Objectives Always Never

(Always 13) (Never 13)

Read passage with Read passage objectives available with NO for 13 min. objectives for

13 min



Review

Objectives Objectives Before After

Read objectives Read passage for for 3 min IO min

Read passage Read objectives for IO min for 3 min

Review passage Review passage for 10 min for 10 min



23 Min

Objectives Objectives Always Never

(Always 23) (Never 23)

Read passage with Read passage objective available with NO for 23 min objectives for

23 min



had 3 min to read the list. When the passage was provided to the experimental groups, they were told they had 10 min to read the passage. The two groups given a review period were told, after their initial reading period, “Now you have 10 more minutes to review for the test. You may look at the passage, but you may not use a pencil.”

The reference groups were told, “You will have ($33) minutes to read and study for a test.”

Finally, all groups were instructed in the following manner for the free recall test: “Write down all the facts you can remember from the passage in rhe order in which you remember them. Do not worry about spelling or remembering exact words, but do list any and all facts that you remember. You will have 15 minutes.” It was emphasized that information should be written down in the order in which it was recalled.

Procedure. Groups of from 5 to 30 subjects met in university classrooms. One of the


TABLE 2 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR TOTAL CORRECT PROPOSITIONS

RECALLED AND TOTAL OBJECTIVE-RELEVANT PROPOSITIONS RECALLED

Before No Review After No Review Always 13 Never 13

Before Review After Review Always 23 Never 23

,M

Total Objective-Relevant

SD .M SD

Short study time 27.36 8.23 25.68 8.25 25.80 9.85 26.64 10.26

Long study time 35.84 9.79 37.76 10.36 34.08 10.21 35.24 14.01

8.32 4.34 5.20 2.38 8.60 3.93 3.64 2.36

10.96 4.50 12.60 3.84 12.48 4.18 4.64 2.55

two experimenters handed out materials and administered the directions appropriate for a given group. The sequence of directions for each group is shown in Table 1.

While students were reading, the experimenter kept track of the number of minutes remaining and wrote this information on the blackboard. When the reading and review time was completed. the experimenter directed the students to remove the test booklet from the test envelope and perform the subtraction problems that were given. The subtraction task lasted for 1 min and was included to prevent recency effects. Students were then directed to write down all the facts they could remember from the passage on the papers provided.

Scoring procedure. Protocols were first scored for correct objective-relevant and incidental propositions. Propositions were subject-predicate relationships. Objective- relevant propositions were propositions referred to by the objectives (a total of 19). Inci- dental propositions were all other propositions in the text (a total of 218).

Protocols were scored for the clustering of objective-relevant propositions by topic. Any set of two or more objective-relevant propositions from the same topic that occurred in an uninterrupted sequence in free recall was considered to be a cluster. Since there were six topics and four, four, three, four, two, and two propositions per topic the greatest possible number of clusters was nine. The number of clusters was then weighted by the total number of topics recalled and also by the proportion of objective-relevant propositions recalled so that the clustering index would be comparable across subjects having different base rates for objective-relevant recall. The clustering formula used for this weighting procedure was Roenker, Thompson, and Brown’s (1971) Adjusted Ratio of Clustering (ARC) measure.

RESULTS

Total recall and objective-relevant recall. Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for the total number of correct propositions recalled and for the number of objective-relevant propositions recalled.

Inspection of the means for total recall reveals that, while none of the groups differed on total recall as a function of the time at which the


objectives list was available, they did differ as a function of study time C”23-min groum = 35*73 9 M13-min proups = 26.37). A 4 x 2 analysis of variance verified these observations. There was a significant effect of study time, F (1,192) = 41.75;~ < .OOl, but the effect of timing of the objectives list was not significant. The fact that readers learn more in 23 min than in 13 min is an unsurprising result, but does suggest that students were cooperating and following directions during the study.

Inspection of the means for objective-relevant recall shows that the standard result for objectives was replicated. That is, it appears that all groups that had objectives at some time during reading or study had higher objective-relevant recall than did the groups that never had objectives. In addition, the group that had objectives available, but only for retrieval purposes (the After No Review group) showed objective- relevant recall that was equivalent to that of the group that never saw objectives. These observations were verified by a significant Study Time x Placement of Objectives interaction, F(3,192) = 7.83; p < .OOl and Scheffe tests between each pair of cell means which revealed that for groups having the shorter reading time, the Before No Review and the Always 13 groups had greater objective-relevant recall than did the Never 13 group, while the After No Review and Never 13 group did not differ reliably. For groups having the longer reading time the Before Review, After Review, and Always 23 groups all showed greater recall of objective-relevant propositions than did the Never 23 group. (The critical difference for this test was 2.84.)

These findings are consistent with previous studies showing improved objective-relevant learning given objectives (cf. Duchastel & Brown, 1974; Gagne & Rothkopf, 1975; Kaplan & Rothkopf, 1974). The present study extends the finding to a free recall measure.

There was also a main effect for study time on objective-relevant recall, F(3,192) = 55.70, p < .OOl, with subjects having a longer reading time recalling more objective-relevant propositions (M = 10.17) than subjects having a shorter reading time (M = 6.44).

Incidental recall and clustering. The results of primary interest were the clustering results. Incidental recall and clustering means and standard deviations are shown in Table 3. Incidental recall is reported because for groups that differ in recall of incidental propositions, it is not appropriate to make comparisons on the ARC measure of clustering of objective- relevant propositions. This is because this measure of clustering is based on the likelihood of an uninterrupted sequence of two or more objective- relevant propositions in recall. That likelihood obviously is affected by how many incidental propositions were recalled, because the more incidental propositions, the greater the chances for the sequence of objective-


TABLE 3 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR INCIDENTAL RECALL AND

CLUSTERING OF OBJECTIVE-RELEVANT ~OPOSITIONS BY TOPIC

Incidental Clustering

M SD M SD

Before No Review After No Review Always 13 Never 13

Short study time 19.04 6.20 20.48 7.18 17.20 9.54 23.00 8.87

.lO .79 -24 .63

.20 .48

.03 .60

Before Review After Review Always 23 Never 23

Long study time 24.88 9.74 25.16 7.84 21.60 10.28 30.60 12.38

.ll .44

.29 .34

.38 .35

.Ol .58

relevant propositions to be interrupted by them. Therefore, when groups differ in how many incidental propositions are recalled, comparisons of clustering cannot be made.

Because the groups with the longer study time (bottom set in Table 3) recalled more incidental material, F( 1,192) = 18.84, p < .OOl, than the groups with the shorter study time (top set in Table 3), comparisons between these two sets of groups were not made. In addition to not making comparisons on clustering across groups having different study times, the Always and Never reference groups were not compared because their levels of incidental recall also differed significantly, t(48) = 2.18, p < .05, and t(48) = 3.28, p < .Ol, respectively, for the 13- and 23-min conditions. All other pairwise comparisons of clustering were performed.

Two-tailed t tests for clustering revealed that within the short study time groups (top set in Table 3) the only significant comparison was the difference between the Always 13 (M = .20) and the After No Review (M = -.24) groups, r (48) = 2.93, p < .Ol. The Always 13 group showed significantly more clustering than the After No Review group. Within the long study time (bottom) set, the Always 23 and Before Review groups differed from each other, t(48) = 2.25, p < .05. The Always 23 group (M = .38) showed more clustering than the Before Review group (M = .l 1). Also, the After Review and Never 23 groups differed reliably from one another, t(48) = 2.05, p < ,05, with the After Review (M = .29) group showing more clustering than the Never 23 (M = .Ol) group. As was previously stated, statistical comparisons between the Always and Never


reference groups could not be made due to different levels of incidental learning. However, it is clear that the clustering index is much larger for the Always than for the Never groups.

Attention-ordering. The attention-ordering hypothesis states that the reader skims the passage for objective-relevant sentences, encodes these sentences in the order dictated by the objectives, and then outputs the information in this order. If this hypothesis is correct, then the Before Review and Before No Review groups should show more clustering than their appropriate reference Never groups because the former are the groups that had objectives to guide their attention. The After Review and After No Review groups, on the other hand, should not differ from their appropriate reference Never groups since neither of these groups had objectives available to guide their attention.

The results reported above are contrary to these expectations. The amount of clustering in the Before Review and Before No Review groups did not differ from the reference Never groups. Also, the After Review group showed more clustering than the Never 23 group. Since these out- comes were contrary to expectations derived from the attention-ordering hypothesis, that hypothesis is not supported.

Retrieval-ordering. The retrieval-ordering hypothesis states that the objectives are used to cue the sequence in which information is retrieved. Clearly, the critical condition for retrieval by objectives is having the objectives available at or near the time of recall. This condition was met only for the After No Review group. (For the After Review group the objectives were seen after reading but before review and hence were seen 11 min prior to retrieval.) Thus, for the retrieval hypothesis to be upheld only the After No Review group should show more clustering than its reference Never group. Again, the results reported above do not support this prediction: The After No Review group did not show more clustering than the Never 13 group. Thus, no support is provided for the retrieval- ordering hypothesis.

Rehearsal-ordering. Finally, the rehearsal-ordering hypothesis states that the objectives list is used to guide the sequence of rehearsal that occurs after reading. The items rehearsed together are then recalled together. If this hypothesis is correct, then the only group that should show clustering greater than that of the appropriate reference Never group is the After Review group. This is because this is the only group that had the objectives fresh in their memories as they reviewed the information. As can be seen, the pattern of results is consistent with this hypothesis. The After Review group showed significantly more clustering (M = .29) than the Never 23 group (M = .Ol), but the Before No Review, After No Review, and Before Review groups did not show clustering greater than that of their reference Never groups.


Our observation of subjects during the experiment was also consistent with a rehearsal-ordering hypothesis. Although we did not systematically tally observations, our independent impressions were that more subjects in the After Review group displayed overt rehearsal activity (e.g., looking away from the passage and mouthing responses) than in any other group.

DISCUSSION

The main purpose of this study was to rule out some possible explanations for the effect of objectives on the organization of discourse recall. The data clearly rule out attention and retrieval processes as the locus of this organizational effect, and they support rehearsal as the main process underlying the effect of objectives on organization: The only experimental group that showed greater clustering by objectives than did its reference no objectives group was a group given objectives just prior to a review period.

Thus, under the conditions provided in this experiment, it appears that objectives exert their effect on topical clustering largely during a review period. It appears that when objectives are available or active in memory before a review period readers use them to self-test in anticipation of the recall test. If the objectives are not available near to or during review, then rehearsal activities do not appear to emphasize the organization reflected in the objectives. Since the Gagne ef al. (1977) study used the same materials and a similar procedure it is likely that the organizational effects they obtained are due to this rehearsal-by-objectives process.

The rehearsal-ordering process may occur in situations other than reading with objectives. It may be a fairly general organizational process in goal-directed reading. Specifically, in moderately difficult material the reader may first focus on lower-level comprehension goals such as lexical access, assignment of case roles, and integration of the text representa- tion. Later he or she may concentrate on higher level goals such as inference-making or reorganizing the information in the text in anticipation of future use of this material. Just and Carpenter (1980) have been able to separate these processes with eye movement data. However, their experimental procedure did not allow for a review period. In the Just and Carpenter studies both lower and higher level comprehension processes are performed during initial reading, with the inference-making and reorganization process occurring at the ends of sentences. It would be interesting to see if, when subjects were afforded a review period, the lower level and higher level processes would become even more separated in time; that is, whether or not subjects would pause less at the ends of sentences because they knew they had time for inference-making and reorganization during a review period.

Although a rehearsal-mediated organizational process may be quite

24 GAGNh AND BRITTON

general, there are also conditions under which one would expect ordering to be mediated by attention or retrieval. For example, the Just and Car- penter (1980) procedure encourages subjects to organize during initial reading because they have no opportunity to refer back to previously read sentences and no opportunity to review after reading. As another example, if subjects were provided objectives and little time to study, this would encourage them to skim for objective-relevant information and, there being no time for reorganization, this input order would prevail at recall. Conditions that might encourage a retrieval-mediated organization would be (a) when the material is well learned and, therefore, fairly easy to access by a number of routes; and (b) when the objectives are available at the time of retrieval. Such a situation often prevails when an expert is asked a question. The objective (i.e., question) is available and the information is presumably well known. These conditions, however, are not typical of school settings.

There is an interesting contrast in the pattern of results obtained for objective-relevant recall and for clustering that sheds further light on the processes involved in reading with objectives. For objective-relevant recall all groups given objectives at some time before a reading or review period are similar to their Always reference group and dissimilar from their Never reference group. Thus, in terms of increasing goal-relevant learning, provision of objectives helps just as much before reading as before review. By contrast, for clustering, the After Review group shows an advantage over the Before Review group. This contrast allows us to distinguish between preferential acquisition of goal-relevant information and preferential organization of such information by topic. It is only the latter process that is enhanced by rehearsal. The former appears to be affected as much by initial attending and encoding strategies as by rehearsal. This, of course, is consistent with the selective attention hypothesis which has been used to explain the increase in objective-relevant recall given objectives.

These results have some practical implications. When a list of objectives is provided with a text, the following strategy is consistent with the results of this experiment. The student reads the objectives and then reads the passage. Following an initial reading, the student then uses the list of objectives to guide rehearsal for the anticipated test. At this point topically related information from objectives is rehearsed together thus de- termining the sequence of information recalled at the time of a test. If students use such a strategy, and if organization by topically related objectives is desired, then encouragement of the rehearsal phase should increase the probability that such organization will occur.


REFERENCES DUCHASTEL, P. C. & BROWN, B. R. Incidental and relevant learning with instructional

objectives. Journal of Educational Psvchology, 1974, 66, 481-485. FRASE, L. T. Integration of written text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1973, 65,

252-261. GAGNB, E. D., BING, S. B., & BING, J. R. Combined effect of goal organization and test

expectations on organization in free recall following learning from text. Journal oj Educational Psychology, 1977, 69, 428-43 1.

GAGN~, E. D., & ROTHKOPF, E. Z. Text organization and learning goals. Journal of Educa- tional Psychology, 1975, 67, 445-450.

HAYES-ROTH, B., & THORNDYKE, P. Integration of knowledge from text. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1979, 18, 91- 108.

JUST, M. A., & CARPENTER, P. A. A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 1980,87, 329-354.

KAPLAN, R., & ROTHKOPF, E. Z. Instructional objectives as directions to learners: Effects of passage length and amount of objective-relevant content. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1974, 66, 448-456.

ROENKER, D. L., THOMPSON, C. P., & BROWN, S. C. Comparison of measures for the estimation of clustering in free recall. Psvchological Bulletin, 1971, 76, 45-48.

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The role of objectives in guiding the organization of information learned from text