The effects of summarization training on community college developmental English students

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a training program in summarizing textbook articles on developmental English community college students’ ability to summarize text. Although previous research has documented improvement in reading recall when subjects were taught a hierarchical summary procedure, the study constitutes the first attempt to test whether this procedure can be used to train students to write better summaries. Developmental English students were chosen for study because students in this population typically do poorly at this important academic task. Because summary notes are often considered an aid to recall, the study also measured recall protocols of students who were trained in summary writing in contrast to those who received alternative training. Experimental group students were taught to identify the top three levels of importance and had guided practice with feedback once a week for five weeks. Control group students were given training in vocabulary and comprehension techniques. Passages were at least 1200 words. Scoring was based on inclusion of information from the top three levels of hierarchical structure in each passage. The basic questions of the study were: (1) Is there an interaction between group status and cognitive abilities on summary writing posttest scores? (2) Are students who received training in summarization more proficient at summarizing text than students who received another type of training? (3) Are students who received training in summarization more proficient at recalling text than students who received another type of training? (4) Do students trained in summarization score higher than students trained with other methods on a standardized reading test? Regression analyses indicated the following results: (1) There was no interaction between type of training and cognitive abilities on summary writing posttest scores; high and low students profited equally from instruction. (2) Students trained in summarization performed significantly higher than control group students on the summary writing posttest. (3) Treatment group students did not score significantly higher than control group students on the delayed recall test, but there was a trend towards Significance. (4) There was no significant difference between treatment and control group students’ standardized reading test scores.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Department dc:contributor.department

Curriculum and Instruction

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1992

Author dc:creator

• Selinger, Barry Marc

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Hutson, Barbara A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Boucouvalas, Marcie
• Fortune, Jimmie C.
• Hoagland, Nancy
• McKeen, Ronald L.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-06062008-170804

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/38432