Training Self-Checking Routines for Estimating Test Readiness: Generalization from List Learning to Prose Recall

Abstract

Brown and Barclay (Child Development, 1976, 47, 71-80) trained educable retarded children to use either of two memory strategies, Anticipation or Rehearsal, involving a self-checking component.Following the training, both their free recall performance and their ability to estimate their readiness for a recall test improved significantly.In the present research, the students were tested for maintenance and generalization one year following the original training.The younger children (MA = 6 years)showed no effects of the training, whereas an older group (MA = 8 years) both maintained the trained strategies on the original rote recall task and generalized it effectively to a novel situation involving gist recall of prose passages.In comparison to a pair of control groups, the students trained in the use of self-checking routines took more time studying, recalled more idea units from the passages, and further, their recall was more clearly related to the thematic importance of the constituent idea units, a pattern characteristic of developmentally more advanced subjects.