| There have been very few studies directed at identifying the cognitive factors that predict positive studying outcomes. Extant research, however, suggested that metacognitive strategy use, reading comprehension skill, and background knowledge are requisite for successful studying. The present study evaluated the contribution of those factors, along with text-explicitness, to test performance as a result of studying a fictitious history text.; Eighty-six college students were trained to "think-aloud" while they studied a history text. Half of the students verbalized their thoughts while studying an expanded version of the text, while the others verbalized their thoughts with an unexpanded version of the text. The verbal protocols were used to measure incidents of metacognitive strategy use. Each student also took a history knowledge test and a reading comprehension test, which provided measures of their background knowledge in the domain of history and skill in reading comprehension, respectively. The contribution of each independent variable to studying was assessed by performance on text-explicit (TE) and text-implicit (TI) multiple-choice questions.; Unlike past research, this study failed to find an interaction between text-explicitness and reading comprehension skill and level of background knowledge; regardless of their other skills, students in the expanded text condition outperformed those in the unexpanded text condition. Hierarchical regression analyses also revealed that reading comprehension skill predicted performance on the TE items, and both reading comprehension skill and metacognitive strategy use predicted performance on the TI items. The following findings were obtained unexpectedly: level of background knowledge predicted performance on the TE items, but not the TI items, and skill in reading comprehension was a slightly better predictor of performance on the TI than TE items.; Results of the present study indicate that each independent variable does contribute significantly to studying outcomes, which has important implications for educators to help students learn to study more effectively. Limitations of this study, however, indicate that future research could attempt to clarify which metacognitive strategies are most beneficial, and to determine whether skill in reading comprehension, independent of verbal ability, is as influential a variable on studying outcomes as this study suggests. |
