Instructional texts rewritten by five expert teams: Revisions and retention improvements.

700 undergraduates were tested in 3 experiments on original or rewritten versions of 52 instructional texts about Army job tasks, general science, philosophy, and history. 5 experts had rewritten various sets of the texts and stated hypotheses about the efficacious features of their revisions. We tested their hypotheses and several others. Recall and recognition tests were given immediately and after a 24-hr delay. Some of our hypotheses about the revision features were supported, but different features were effective for different sets of texts. It was concluded that some experts have effective knowledge about improving instructional text, but it exists primarily in procedural form