Predictive Inferences in Scientific and Technological Contexts
Jose Otero, Jos‚ A. Le¢n, Arthur C. Graesser · 2014
This chapter examines the cognitive processes of answering questions from memory and from text, and their effects on comprehension. It reviews a number of assumptions concerning the cognitive processes of text comprehension. The chapter discusses three factors that influence the role of inserted questions in text comprehension: type of questions, metatextual cues, and individual variables. It presents some instructional implications concerning the design of instructional study tasks that promote effective learning from text. The chapter reviews the main findings concerning the effects of inserted questions. It examines current theoretical approaches to question answering from memory and/or from text. The authors suggested that the graphical overview hindered low-knowledge students&s; comprehension of detailed aspects of the situation model because the overview drew their attention to the textual macrostructure at the expense of the microstructure. When considering the theoretical and empirical work reviewed in the chapter, several conclusions can be drawn about the effects of inserted questions on the comprehension of scientific text.