Implement a comprehension-test-expectancy intervention by explicitly describing upcoming inference tests and providing sample inference questions¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 6 claims (4 for, 2 mixed) · 1 study (1 quant-synthesis), q3 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Before testing, instructors tell learners that upcoming tests will assess deeper understanding rather than memory of details, and provide sample test questions about practice texts. The article's included studies implemented this via "both (a) an explicit description of the nature of the test questions and (b) sample test questions about practice texts." This guides learners to select situation-model cues and overrides the reading-for-memory mindset, and showed the largest pooled effect (g = 0.84) of the seven interventions.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Both an explicit description of the test's nature and sample questions about practice texts must be provided

Constraints¶

• The intervention does not facilitate external diagnostic processes or produce outputs instructors can evaluate, unlike summary writing

Target Learners¶

• school and university students reading expository texts

Target Learning Goals¶

• accurate relative metacomprehension judgments
• selection of situation-model cues

Affordances¶

• Cue Generation Attention Selection Intervention Taxonomy

Claims¶

• Five of seven situation-model interventions significantly improved relative metacomprehension accuracy, concept mapping only marginally (p = .097), and self-explaining not significantly [+W]
• Intervention effects on relative metacomprehension accuracy did not differ between school and university students [~W]
• Intervention types (cue-generation encoding-based, retrieval-based, cue-attention, cue-selection) do not substantially differ in effectiveness [~W]
• Situation-model-approach interventions also directly improved comprehension, albeit with a small effect [+W]
• Situation-model-approach interventions produce a medium positive average effect (g = 0.46) on relative metacomprehension accuracy [+W]
• Comprehension-test expectancy tended to be more effective than delayed-keywords listing and rereading, though interventions did not substantially differ overall [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Previewing
• Pre Questioning

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Anja Prinz & Stefanie Golke & Jörg Wittwer. (2020). To What Extent Do Situation-Model-Approach Interventions Improve Relative Metacomprehension Accuracy? Meta-Analytic Insights. Educational Psychology Review (2020) 32:917–949. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09558-6