The Effects on Student Achievement and Student Perception of Varying Structure in Social Studies Content

Fifth grade social studies students of various verbal ability levels were presented lessons with a high degree of structure or a low degree of structure. Structure was defined in terms of the frequency with which concepts were repeated from one sentence to the next. After the lessons students were tested for comprehension of the material covered and then they rated the lessons in terms of perceived effectiveness. Students presented the high structure lessons achieved significantly higher and rated the lessons higher. These findings are discussed in relation to previous research on structure.