Study Activities That Foster Generative Learning: Notetaking, Graphic Organizer, and Questioning

Fourth graders were asked to read a text and either to fill in a compare-and-contrast graphic organizer, answer a set of structured questions, take notes, or simply read the text. Both the graphic organizer and questioning groups outperformed the read-only group on a comprehension test ( d = 1.24 and 1.22, respectively) and a memory test ( d = 0.54 and 0.53, respectively). No significant differences were found between the notetaking and read-only groups on the comprehension test ( d = 0.30) or the memory test ( d = 0.20). Results showed more integrative eye movements between paragraphs for the graphic organizer ( d = 1.53) and the questioning groups ( d = 1.90) than the read-only group, but not for the notetaking group ( d = −0.06). On all three measures, the graphic organizer group and the questioning group exhibited a generative learning strategy, whereas the notetaking and read-only groups exhibited a linear learning strategy.