| Abstract: | A selective attentional model used to explain recent mathemagenic and related research findings also predicted that textbook study questions adjunct to a flow diagram focus students' attention more upon questioned information and less upon nonquestioned information. Furthermore, the chances of such dysfunctional selective attention are increased when students are provided with a mere sampling (partial set) of study questions covering only portions of the diagram and are decreased when students are provided with a population (complete set) of questions or a no-question treatment. As predicted, using the Newman-Keuls procedure (p <0.05), the population and no-question treatment groups outperformed the sampling-question group which, in turn, outperformed a placebo-control group. It was concluded that researchers and teachers should be aware that encouraging students to concentrate on selective portions of critical information can result in inadequate processing of such specialized science materials as flow diagrams. |
