Learning from lectures: Effects of knowledge maps and cooperative review strategies

The effects of knowledge maps versus list‐style lecture aids and cooperative versus individual review strategies were investigated. Eighty‐five undergraduates viewed either knowledge maps or lists while hearing a lecture on descriptive statistics, then reviewed the information alone or with a partner, using either maps or lists as review aids. Dependent measures were free recall and scores on a multiple‐choice test including factual versus application‐level items. Other measures included self‐reports of prior knowledge and confidence, and repeated‐measures ratings of comprehension and predicted test performance. Recall performance was influenced significantly by the interaction of format with confidence; that is, less confident students were helped by having maps while more confident students did better with lists. An analysis of notetaking behaviours revealed that map‐users annotated their handouts significantly less than list users. Also, the metacognitions of map‐users with regard to their comprehension and predicted performance were less accurate than list‐users, as shown by correlations between self‐ratings and test scores. Map‐users with low confidence had the least accurate metacognitions.