WHY GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS FACILITATE SEARCH PROCESSES - FEWER WORDS OR COMPUTATIONALLY EFFICIENT INDEXING

Three experiments investigated how quickly and accurately students cou ld locate information contained in different types of displays. Underg raduates read multiple-choice questions and then searched either texts , outlines, or graphic organizers to find information needed to answer the questions. In Experiments 1 and 2, students who searched either g raphic organizers or outlines found answers to fact questions more qui ckly than those who searched text, and students who searched graphic o rganizers found answers to comparison questions more quickly than thos e who searched either outlines or text. In Experiment 3, all three dis plays contained the same number of words to remove a potential confoun d in Experiments 1 and 2. Results indicated that those who searched gr aphic organizers found the answer to a pattern question more quickly t han those who searched either outlines or text. These findings suggest that the facilitative advantage of graphic organizers in locating inf ormation is attributable to computationally efficient indexing rather than fewer words. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.