Making connections efficiently: A comparison of two approaches used by college students to construct networks

This study compared the effects of two approaches to networking. Two intact classes of college students participated in this study. The major focus of this study was to examine the extent to which the mental construction of n etworks was sufficient for recall to occur. Two intact classes of students participated in this study. Experimental participants were taught to constr uct their own networks both on paper and mentally while control participant s were not. Recall of ideas was assessed at the pretest and at the posttest using a free-written recall task and a multiple-choice test. The results s howed that networking mentally is as effective for recalling ideas and more time-efficient than networking on paper. Moreover, participants used diffe rent networking modalities depending on the passage to be read and the leve l of detail they are attempting to recall. The results are promising as the y provide college students with a powerful tool that encourages cognitive p rocessing without unnecessarily depleting their time resources. However, th e results of this study also reveal that some initial experience with the s trategy is necessary. (C) 1999 Academic Press.