Underlining Performance Outcomes in Expository Text

Underlining is the most popular of the active response study strategies. Unfortunately, research efforts of study strategies do not fully explain this popularity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate one possible reason for the popularity of underlining, namely, test performance outcomes anticipated by students from underlining. Two 2×3 A NOV As were used in a study, review, and test paradigm that investigated underlining performance outcomes with college students. The ANOVA’s used two levels of study time and three levels of reading achievement as the independent variables. The dependent variable in both analyses was number correct on a probed-recall test over the contents of a Scientific American reprint. Results suggest that regardless of study time and reading achievement, underlining is popular because it helps to ensure recall of information from underlined text segments.