An Analysis of the Relative Efficacy of Advanced Organizers, Post Organizers, Interspersed Questions, and Combinations thereof in Facilitating Learning and Retention from a Televised Lecture

Cognitive organizers and interspersed questions have been demonstrated to facilitate learning from written material. This study investigated the effects of advance organizers, post organizers, and interspersed questions as procedures for improving learning from video-taped lectures. Ninth graders (N = 176) were assigned at random to eight isolated and combined instances of advance organizers, post organizers, and questions; one group was instructed without the use of adjunct material. Learning was evaluated through a multiple-choice test, and the results were subjected to analysis of variance and to Scheffe post hoc procedures. Significant effects were found for interspersed questions. Neither advance nor post organizers resulted in increased learning.