Toward a Systematic Method of Measuring Free Recall from Printed News Stories.
Meenakshi Gigi Durham · 1994
This paper proposes a systematic method of measuring subjects' free recall from printed hard news stories, based on schema theories of cognition. Citing literature that demonstrates the role of text structures and text schemas in the recall of written text, the paper suggests incorporating these processes into the assessment of recall of news. In the paper, the first steps toward developing such a measure are taken; the procedure hinges on parsing stimulus and response passages according to a schematic news structure. A pilot study of the instrument's reliability and validity (involving 69 undergraduate students) is included in the paper, although further work neecis to be done to refine the instrument. Contains 63 references and 2 figures illustrating examples of text structures. The comprehension measure is attached. (Author/RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************