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A study was conducted to determine the effects of age, verbal ability, education, reading habits, and recall strategies on prose recall among adults. Subjects were 422 adults in three age groups--young (18-28 years), middle (40-54), and older (62-80). They were asked to read and recall in writing two 388-word prose passages and to answer questions about their background reading habits and recall strategies. The results indicated that while increasing age was associated with a decrease in recall, both verbal ability and education were better predictors of recall than was age. In addition, a recall strategy factor representing "paragraph by paragraph" retrieval produced the highest simple correlations with total recall and contributed significantly to the explanation of other recall measures. Reading habit factors associated with recall reflected subjects' self-assessment as good and frequent readers as well as their need to know information. The reading and recall strategy factors proved to be better predictors of recall than the reading habit factors. While the findings confirmed the expectation that more practiced readers will recall more, the results also made it possible to refine understanding of the relationship between recall and reading experience. They also suggested that training in the use of reading and recall strategies may be used to improve recall in all age groups. (Extensive tables of data are appended.) (HTH)

A study examined how the text variables of organizational plan (top-level structure), emphasis plan (implemented through signalling devices), and presence of details influenced the selection of reading strategies by adults. Subjects--149 young, middle aged, and older expert readers--read and recalled in writing two expository prose passages of 388 words each. The results indicated that when the author's emphasis plan corresponded with his or her organizational plan, the readers were more likely to use a "structure strategy" in their processing. This resulted in recalls that were organized in the same manner as the original passage, showed a strong levels effect, and contained many of the logical relationships from the original text. In contrast, when the author's emphasis plan was in conflict with the organization plan (a "differential" emphasis plan), readers tended to use a "default strategy" of simply listing what they could remember or to devise other strategies. These recalls were less likely to be organized by the same plan used by the author, showed little or no levels effect, and contained fewer logical relationships than those from passages with normal emphasis plans. In addition, the presence of specific details was found to affect the processing strategies of readers under certain conditions. No significant differences were found in recall performances among the three age groups. (Passages used in the study are appended.) (Author/FL)

Discourse can be organized in many different ways, two of these being comparison and a collection of descriptions. These two discourse types correspond to schemata that vary in their organizational components, and these differences can be expected to produce differences in the processing of text. For example, research has shown that for young adults of high verbal ability, the more organized discourse type--comparison--yields better recall of information than does the less organized type--collection--for descriptions of a topic. A study was conducted to explore the view that the learning of information from discourse can be enhanced by matching its organization to the learner's prevalent learning strategy. The subjects, 40 young, 38 middle aged, and 40 old adults, completed a demographic survey, health questionnaire, survey of reading habits, and the Quick Word Test. Scores on the word test indicated that approximately half the subjects in each age group were high verbal and half were average verbal. Subjects read especially constructed passages with different discourse structures and responded to recall questions. Results showed that the comparison structure yielded superior recall for all age groups. No interaction was found, however, among discourse type, age, and verbal ability. (Passages used in the study are included in the text.) (FL)

The effects of organizational variables on recall of prose were examined in 48 college-educated adults in three age groups (20 to 33 years, 41 to 55 years, and 58 to 79 years). It was hypothesized that if older adults suffered deficits in organizational processes, they would show lower quantities of prose recall, difficulties in following the text's top-level structure and diminished "levels effects" (information high in the hierarchical text structure is recalled better than information low in the hierarchy). Two experiments tested these implications, using a system of prose analysis to identify text structure. One study focused on age-related differences in the total amount of information remembered and the type of information remembered, while the second study determined whether older subjects exhibited differential recall of prose when the prose was organized according to different top-level structures. No age differences were found in total recall, recall of main ideas, nor use of the text's top-level structure. The young-adult group, however, did exhibit levels effects while the middle and older adult groups did not. The young-adult group recalled significantly more high-level information than low-level information. This difference was attributed to the effects of current schooling practices rather than to organizational or reading comprehension deficits in the aged. (RL)

A model is proposed that attempts to provide some order for the disparate findings with respect to the effects of signaling in text on recall. The type of signaling examined is that which explicitly cues the relationships among the major propositions in the text structure. It is noted that while it is generally assumed that such signaling is an aid to the reader, few studies have shown differences in recall for versions of texts with and without signaling. The model proposed recognizes signaling to be one factor in a series of interacting reader and text variables that affect recall. Thus, the relative effects of signaling on recall are seen to be dependent on such reader attributes as ability to use the "structure strategy" in reading, adequacy of text organization skills, and the difficulty level of the text. (Data on ninth grade student and adult readers are considered in support of the model.) (Author/RL)

Teachers' perspectives on the student assessment process and on the role of testing in that process are presented. Primarily ethnographic in approach, this study includes investigations of teachers' ideas and thought processes as well as observation of actual classroom practice. Six elementary teachers participated in a three-stage process of initial interviews, classroom observation, and post-interviews. Interviews included standard ethnosemantic procedures for eliciting a taxonomy of evaluation techniques, questions about the uses to which these techniques are put, and a judged similarity task for eight commonly mentioned techniques. The classroom observation sessions included the administration of the California Achievement Tests. Results indicate that there is considerable variation in teachers' opinions about standardized testing and in the classroom procedures for administering these tests. Despite this variation, the actual degree to which this testing and its products are employed by teachers is consistently quite small. Teachers perceive as most valid those techniques which are fully integrated into classroom instruction and over which they have full control. (Author/PN)