REEXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VERBAL KNOWLEDGE BACKGROUND AND KEYWORD TRAINING FOR VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

The literature on keyword training presents a confusing picture of the usefulness of the keyword method for foreign language vocabulary lear ning by students with strong verbal knowledge backgrounds. This paper reviews research which notes the existence of conflicting sets of find ings concerning the verbal background-keyword training relationship an d presents the results of analyses which argue against the assertion m ade by McDaniel and Pressley (1984) that keyword training will have mi nimal effect on students with high verbal ability. Findings from regre ssion analyses of data from two studies did not show that the relation ship between keyword training and immediate recall performance was mod erated by verbal knowledge background. The disparate sets of findings related to the keyword training-verbal knowledge relationship and them es emerging from other research suggest that this relationship require s further examination, (C) 1997 Academic Press.