LEARNING FROM LECTURES - EFFECTS OF KNOWLEDGE MAPS AND COOPERATIVE REVIEW STRATEGIES

The effects of knowledge maps versus list-style lecture aids and coope rative versus individual review strategies were investigated. Eighty-f ive undergraduates viewed either knowledge maps or lists while hearing a lecture on descriptive statistics, then reviewed the information al one or with a partner, using either maps or lists as review aids. Depe ndent measures were free recall and scores on a multiple-choice test i ncluding factual versus application-level items. Other measures includ ed self-reports of prior knowledge and confidence, and repeated-measur es ratings of comprehension and predicted test performance. Recall per formance was influenced significantly by the interaction of format wit h confidence; that is, less confident students were helped by having m aps while more confident students did better with lists. An analysis o f notetaking behaviours revealed that map-users annotated their handou ts significantly less than list users. Also, the metacognitions of map -users with regard to their comprehension and predicted performance we re less accurate than list-users, as shown by correlations between sel f-ratings and test scores. Map-users with low confidence had the least accurate metacognitions.