Bransford and Johnson (1972)

Aim

Investigate whether schema activation would improve understanding and recall of an ambiguous text

Method

• 52 participants

• Allocated to one of three conditions

• In the No Topic group participants heard a passage with no additional information.

• In the Topic After group participants were told the topic of the passage after hearing it.

• In the Topic Before group participants were told the topic of the passage before hearing it.

• All participants were told that they were going to hear a tape-recorded passage.

• Were told that they would later be asked to recall the passage as accurately as possible.

• All participants were tested at the same time, but they had different answer booklets.

• For those who were in the Topic Before group, their instruction sheet said, “The paragraph you will hear will be about washing clothes.”

• After listening to the passage, they were asked to rate their comprehension of the passage on a 1 - 7 scale.

• On the final page of the booklet, they were asked to recall the passage as accurately as possible.

• The Topic After group’s instructions included, “It may help you to know that the paragraph was about washing clothes.”

Results

The results show the average amount of info an individual from each group recalled (out of a possible 18 idea units)

• Title before = 5.8 idea units

• Title after = 2.5 idea units

• No title = 2.8 idea units

Conclusion

Researchers concluded that prior knowledge of a situation does not guarantee its usefulness for comprehension. In order for prior knowledge to aid comprehension, it must become an activated schema

Research Method

Laboratory Experiment

Strengths

• high internal validity as it is highly controlled

• cause-and-effect relationship

• high replicability

• real world application in education, helping students improve learning techniques

Limitations

• Low ecological validity as it is an artificial task

• Participant variability with regard to experience with washing clothes may be a confounding variable

• It cannot be determined whether an actual “laundry schema” was activates while listening to the text. There may be different reasons for rate of recall such as good memory skills