ELABORATIVE MAPS FOR ENHANCED LEARNING OF HISTORICAL INFORMATION - UNITING SPATIAL, VERBAL, AND IMAGINAL INFORMATION

Map-like displays containing names of battles of the American Revoluti on and related battle information were presented to 72 middle school s tudents with learning disabilities (LD). Students were randomly assign ed to one of three map conditions that depicted information in a spati al organizational format but varied the symbols used to mark the map. Map symbols included (a) reconstructive elaborations of battle names a nd associated event information, (b) mnemonic keywords of battle names , and (c) realistic drawings of soldiers, buildings, and so forth. A 3 (organization) by 2 (recall) (location vs. event information) analysi s of variance indicated that recall of locations was significantly gre ater than recall of event information in all conditions, mnemonic enco ding resulted in greater recall of locations but not events, and elabo rative encoding resulted in greater recall of event information relati ve to the mnemonic map but greater recall of locations and event infor mation relative to the non-mnemonic map. Student reports of strategy u se and implications for instruction of students with LD are discussed.