The Compensatory Effect of Graphic Organizers on Descriptive Text

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The study investigated the use of graphic organizers to compensate for text that was less than optimal in its organization. Tenth graders (N = 114) read two versions of an expository passage that differed only in structure (comparison versus description). Both experimental groups studied a graphic organizer that had been constructed to reflect the comparison text structure. On immediate and delayed recall measures, the experimental groups recalled significantly more than the control groups only under the descriptive text condition. Results support assimilation encoding theory and suggest that organizers aid recall when readers must reorganize information but do not help when reorganization is unnecessary. All students, regardless of reading level, benefited from the use of graphic organizers.