An-Najah Staff

Two Experiments have been conducted to test the effect of cognitive strategies on memory and comprehension levels of learning.

Two random samples consisted of (55 , 94) male and female college freshmen at An-Najah National University served for these two independent experiments.  Subjects in each experiment were presented with a (1000) word passage talking about “Islamic Sufism”.The sample of experiment 1. was randomly assigned into four groups:  The first group served as Embedded Cognitive Strategy (ECS) in which students were directed to read the passage and notes inserted within it.  The second group served as Specified Generative Cognitive Strategy (SGCS) in which students were directed to read the same passage and asked to take or generate their notes on it.  The third group served as Unspecified Generative Cognitive Strategy (USGCS) in which students were directed to use their own cognitive strategies activators without any specification.  The fourth group was a control group in which students neither received nor generated notes or any cognitive strategy activators.  They were just directed to read the passage.Experiment 2. on the other hand was designed to take into consideration students’ ability (high & low), and the motivation factor (M) beside the above mentioned variables in experiment 1.  Thus, the sample of this experiment was randomly assigned into five groups:  the first three groups received the same treatments that the experimental groups had received in experiment 1:   (ECS, SGCS, USGCS).  The fourth experimental group was directed to use any cognitive strategy they like, but they were encouraged, occasionally, to do so while they are reading the passage (USGCS + M).  However, the fifth group was a control group similar to the one in experiment 1.On a 12-short answer immediate posttest questions measuring two levels of learning:  Memory and Comprehension; One-Way ANOVA failed to show any significant differences among experimental and control groups in either experiment 1 or 2.  The Two-Way ANOVA in experiment 2 showed a significant main effect in favor to the ability level which indicated that the high ability students performed significantly better than the low ability students on memory sub-test, {F(1:3) = 4.42; p< .05}, and approached significance on the Total test measuring the memory and comprehension, {F(1:3) = 3.66; p< .08).  but the same ANOVA did not show a significant column main effect, nor interaction effect on any posttest.

Further inspection of groups’ performance showed, generally, that the averages of achievement of USGCS and ECS were higher than the SGCS, USGCS + M and the control groups the Total test.  It also showed that the most frequent cognitive strategies that had been generated by students were:  the underlining, notes-taking, and summarizing.

These observations call teachers’ attention to take the major role in instructional process without denying students, particularly the high ability ones, from having control over their cognitive strategies.  In addition, researchers are invited to duplicate these studies to verify the author’s conclusions.