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- Vol 1 RE: Chapter 9, App B
elaborative encodingexplanatory answersincidental learningintentional learningmemory retentionretrieval cuesknowledge elaborationJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Across three experiments, Pressley and colleagues examine why elaboration improves memory and whether learners benefit from generating it themselves. Adults studied base sentences expressing arbitrary relations, such as a particular person performing an action.
Key ideas
Some sentences included a precise elaboration that made the relation meaningful; in other conditions, participants answered questions prompting them to generate or interpret an explanation. Both intentional learning, where participants expected a test, and incidental learning were examined. Precise elaborations improved memory for the target relations, and actively constructing answers could support retention when the generated explanation connected the distinctive subject with the action. Benefits were not attributable simply to added words or time: the elaboration’s precision and relevance mattered. The work supports an encoding account in which explanation creates a discriminable, retrievable relation between otherwise arbitrary elements.
Why it matters
For educators, asking “why does this make sense?” can promote durable learning, but prompts should elicit accurate links to the target fact. Unguided elaboration may be vague, incorrect, or memorable for irrelevant details, so feedback and well-chosen examples remain important.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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