DIRECT INSTRUCTION VERSUS REPEATED EXPOSURE RELATED TO AUTOMATIC PROCESSING OF COHESIVE SIGNALS ON FOURTH-GRADE STUDENTS (COHESION, PRONOUNS, INSTRUCTION)
Abstract
This study compared two programs of teaching five referent resolution strategies (number, gender, grammatical role, and implicit causality) to help fourth graders identify the referent of pronouns. The first method used direct instruction, and the second method employed repeated exposure together with inductive learning. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative effectiveness of these two instructional approaches in enabling students to identify the referents of pronouns at an automatic level, i.e., without conscious attention. The subjects were two intact fourth-grade classes. The direct instruction group included 18 girls and 15 boys; the other group, the repeated exposure group, had 16 girls and 16 boys. Both groups received a pretest which measured their speed and accuracy of response for the identification of referents for pronouns. The direct instructional program utilized 15 teacher-directed lessons to teach basic grammar and the five referent resolution strategies. Each lesson was developmental, in that, each topic was systematically taught and then evaluated. The second program, the repeated exposure program, presented basic grammar and the five referent resolution strategies in specially constructed narratives. For the basic grammar component, the narratives fully explained each grammar topic, and were followed by related activities and self-evaluation tests. On the other hand, the referent resolution strategies were simply embedded within the framework of various narratives without any explanations. As a result, the students were forced to induce for themselves the five strategies from repeated exposure to the narratives. The teacher's role was to explain the directions found within the program's self-contained workbooks. A posttest was administered. To control for reading differences, a two-way analysis of covariance with repeated measures on accuracy was performed. Next, to determine the effects of speed, a two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures on speed was utilized. Lastly, an analysis of raw data was undertaken to identify the most and least effective strategy. Results of these analyses suggest that repeated exposure method was more effective, but not at a significant level. The most successful strategies were implicit causality and gender, whereas, the least successful were grammatical role and number.
Subject Area
Literacy|Reading instruction
Recommended Citation
GIAQUINTO, RICHARD ANTHONY, "DIRECT INSTRUCTION VERSUS REPEATED EXPOSURE RELATED TO AUTOMATIC PROCESSING OF COHESIVE SIGNALS ON FOURTH-GRADE STUDENTS (COHESION, PRONOUNS, INSTRUCTION)" (1985). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8508116.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8508116
