The Effect of Textual Errors on Dyadic and Individual Learning

The major objective of the present experiment was to assess the effects of textual errors on dyadic and individual learning. One hundred undergraduates were taught a four-step learning strategy, after which they studied a text passage either dyadically or individually. Half of the passages within both conditions contained syntactic errors. Total recall measures indicated that dyads performed better than individuals on recall of text in sections not containing errors, whereas the groups did not differ on recall of the material in text sections containing errors. Further, dyads outscored individuals on measures of recall of error location, error frequency, and perceived difficulty of the text sections which contained errors. In addition, subjective processing measures indicated that motivation and interest were strongly related to recall.