A study of the effect of problem/solution text on children's comprehension

Barnes, Doreen Grace (1995) A study of the effect of problem/solution text on children's comprehension. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (12MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

The aim of this quasi-experimental study was to learn if consistent direct instruction of the problem/solution text structure strategy would improve: 1) total recall of text, 2) total recall of problem/solution text structure idea units, and 3) comprehension. One grade five class (n=24) in an urban school served as the treatment group while a second class (n=26) functioned as the control group. It was found that after three weeks of direct instruction the treatment group recalled more problem/solution text structure idea units and had better comprehension scores. There was no significant difference in total number of idea units recalled between the two groups at both pretest and posttest. It was concluded that direct teaching of the problem/solution text structure strategy was effective in improving recall and comprehension for text having this structure- This occurred when the treatment group began to focus on the important elements of the text, which in turn helped them to organize their schema of text.

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