Generation of Summaries and Analogies and Analytic and Holistic Abilities

This study investigates predictions from Wittrock’s model of generative teaching regarding the effects of reader generation of summaries and analogies upon the learning of a block of 50 paragraphs of text. In this study, 59 students were individually assigned at random to three treatments that were predicted and found to rank in the following high to low order on the reading test: (a) Generate Summaries (M = 29.8), (b) Generate Analogies (M = 27.2), and (c) Read Text ( M = 22.4).

We also hypothesized and found that the generation of analogies or summaries during reading differentially stimulates learners’ analytic and holistic (i.e., imagery) abilities. In the Read Text treatment, only holistic ability correlated with learning the high imagery text. In the Generate Analogies treatment, only analytic ability correlated with learning the text. In the Generate Summaries treatment, both holistic and analytic ability correlated with learning.