Use of Top-Level Structure in Text: Key for Reading Comprehension of Ninth-Grade Students

Author(s): Bonnie J. F. Meyer, David M. Brandt and George J. Bluth

Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1980), pp. 72-103
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association
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72

Use of top-level structure in text: Key for reading

comprehension of ninth-grade students'

BONNIEJ.F. MEYER
DAVID M. BRANDT
GEORGEJ. BLUTH
ArizonaState University

THE STUDY INVESTIGATES

ninth-grade students' use of a reading
strategy (the structure strategy) which focuses on following the
organizational structure of text in order to determine what is
important to remember. Texts read were well organized with
problem/solution or comparison structures; signaling varied the
saliency of these structures. Signaling effects were expected to
interact with mastery of the structure strategy. Regardless of
signaling, good comprehenders on the Stanford Achievement Test
were expected to follow the structure strategy while poor
comprehenders were not. However, comprehension underachievers
(vocabulary substantially above comprehension test scores) were
expected to follow the structure strategy only when signaling was
present. Most predictions were supported; the structure strategy
appeared to be a particularly effective retrieval mneumonic. Its
development with age across different discourse types is discussed.
Also characterized is the approach to reading and retelling of ninth-
grade students who do not employ this structure strategy.

cld de
Usagede structurede texte de niveausupedrieur,
comprehensionde lecturechez des edlvesde troisieme.
CETTE ETUDE ANALYSE l'usage d'une strat6gie de lecture (la strat6gie de
structure) d'616vesde troisieme qui se concentre sur une structure
d'organisation suivie du texte dans le but de determinerce dont il est
important de se souvenir. Les textes lus 6taient bien organis6s avec
des structures de comparaison ou de probl6me/solution; la signali-
sation a chang6 la mise en 6vidence de ces structures.On avait prevu
que les effets de signalisation r6agiraientavec la maltrisede la strat6-
gie de structure.On avait anticip6 que les candidats comprenant bien
le test d'accomplissement Stanford suivraient la strat6gie de struc-
ture tandis que le autres non, ceci sans consid6rer la signalisation.
"
Cependent, on avait anticipe que les candidats difficulte de com-
prehension (vocabulaire substantiellement au-dessus des r6sultats
de test de comprehension) suivraient la strat6gie de structure seule-
ment en presence de signalisation. La plupart des predictions etaient
soutenues; la strat6gie de structure semblait &treun recours mn6-

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 73

monique particulierement efficace. Son d6veloppement avec l'age a

travers diff6rents types de discours est discut6. On a 6galement ca-
ract6ris6 l'approche de lecture et de r6p6tition d'616vesde troisieme
qui n'emploient pas cette strat6gie de structure.

El uso de estructuras de alto nivel en el texto, clave para la

comprensidn de lectura por estudiantes de grado noveno
ESTE ESTUDIO INVESTIGA la utilizacion por alumnos de grado 9 de una
estrategia de lectura (estrategia estructural), que centra enseguir la
estructura organizacional del texto para determinar qu6 es lo
importante de recordar. Los textos leidos estaban bien organizados
en terminos de problema-soluci6n o estructuras de comparaci6n;
sefializaci6n vari6 la prominencia de estas estructuras. Se anticip6
que los efectos de sefializaci6n actuarian reciprocamente sobre la
maestria de la estrategia estructural. A pesar de la sefializaci6n, se
esperaba que individuos que mostraran buena comprensi6n en el
"Stanford Achievement Test" (Test de Suficiencia Stanford)
seguirian la estrategia estructural, pero no los que demostraran
deficiente comprensi6n. No obstante, se esperaba que los alumnos
de comprensi6n deficiente (con vocabulario superior a los
resultados de examenes de comprensi6n) seguirian la estrategia
estructural s61o cuando existiera sefializaci6n. La mayoria de las
predicciones se confirmaron; la estrategia estructuralresult6 ser una
mnem6nica especialmente efectiva. Se discute su desarrollo con
avance de edad a trav6s de diferentes tipos de conversaci6n.
Tambi6n se describe la t6cnica de lectura y recontamiento de los
alumnos de grado 9 que no utilizan la estrategia estructural.

Since most of the knowledge acquired in schools is gained via

written prose, an important educational goal is to help students more
efficiently acquire information from their reading. Reading programs at
the upper elementary through high school levels stress the development
of reading comprehension; a component of reading comprehension is
skill in following the organization of a passage (Carroll, 1972; Davis,
1941). A number of available materials (e.g., Dechant, 1970; McGuire &
Bumpus, 1971; Niles, 1974; Sack & Yourman, 1972) encourage readers to
look for the author's organization in a text in order to increase their
retention. This recommendation for reading teachers and their students
to identify and use the author's organization in prose is based on
common sense notions. The present study investigates the validity of this
recommendation with a systematic, theoretically based procedure for
identifying the author's organization of a passage and the organization
used by the reader to remember the passage (Meyer, 1975a, 1975b; Meyer

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74 READING
RESEARCH * Number1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/ 1

& Freedle, Note 1). This study investigates whether or not following the
organization of text relates to identification of ninth-grade students as
good, average, and poor in reading comprehension and to the amount of
information they can remember from their reading. The prose passages
which they read were well organized; saliency of this organization was
varied through signaling.

Background
A number of recent investigations (Beaugrande, 1980; Brown
& Smiley, 1978; Frase, 1969; Kintsch & Keenan, 1973; Meyer, 1975a,
1975b, 1977, 1979; Meyer & McConkie, 1973; Smiley, Oakley, Worthen,
Campione, & Brown, 1977; Taylor, 1979, 1980; Beiger & Dunn, Note 2)
have examined the effects of the structure among the ideas presented in a
text on what the reader learns and retains from the text. The structureof
text specifies the logical connections among ideas in text as well as
subordination of some ideas to others. Specifying the structure of text
provides several benefits for conducting reading research. First, aspects
of text structure provide significant dimensions along which passages
may be evaluated as to their similarities and differences. Second,
specifying the text structure allows the researcherto identify the amount
and type of information which readers remember from text. Third, it
allows identification of variations which arise between text and a reader's
understanding of the text.
For example, Meyer's prose analysis system has been
successfully used to objectively identify and classify different types of
top-level organizational patterns in expository text (Bartlett, 1978;
Meyer, 1977, in press-a, Note 3; Meyer & Freedle, Note 1). Five basic
types of patterns are problem/solution, comparison, antecedent/
consequent, description, and collection (including sequence) (Meyer, in
press-a, Note 3). These top-level structures are equivalent to the major
schemata used by authors to organize their texts (Anderson, 1977;
D'Angelo, 1979; Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977;
Meyer, Note 4). The prose analysis system can also be applied to a recall
protocol written by a student after reading a passage to ascertain the
superordinate schema used by the reader to recall the text. Thus, use of
this system allows for comparison between the top-level structures or
schemata in text and in students' written retellings of text.
Without models of text structure, reading researchers would
be confined to looking at task variables such as adding prequestions,
without any way to specify their interaction with the text materials. In

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 75

fact, the lack of tools for specifying this text variable led most
psychologiststo avoid researchwith prose and confine their investigations
of learning and memory processes to the learning of nonsense syllables
and words. However, in the 1970s, psychologists (Crothers, 1973;
Frederiksen, 1975a;Kintsch, 1974; Meyer, 1975a, 1975b)applied work in
linguistics (Fillmore, 1968; Grimes, 1975; Halliday, 1968; Simmons,
1968) to the problem of specifying the type and organization of
information in text. Knowledge about the structure of text has made it
possible to predict quite adequately which ideas will be recalled from text
by college students and how long they will need to study the text.
Specifying the structure of text permits theorizing about how readers
process and understand text. Current research on prose comprehension
is attempting to integrate task, text, and reader(such as prior knowledge,
purpose, perspective, and cognitive style) variables to better understand
the reading process (Meyer, in press-a; Meyer & Rice, in press; Reder,
1980).

Issues of Present Study

The content structure, resulting from Meyer's (1975a, 1975b)
approach to prose analysis, shows the text's overall organization and the
interrelationships between its ideas and their relative importance from
the text's perspective (see Figure 1). These are the dimensions of text
which are of primary interest in the present study and are also the
strengths of Meyer's system over other available approaches to prose
analysis (Meyer & Rice, in press; Cofer, Scott, & Watkins, Note 5;
Meyer, Note 6).
The passages read in the present study were well organized
in
(Meyer, press-a, Note 3) with clearly identifiable top-level structures.
It was hypothesized that good readers at the ninth-grade level would
employ top-level structures in their recall protocols of the same type as
those found in the well-organized texts, while poor readers would not.
The top-level structures in these texts were expected to provide readers
with a systematic, organized strategy for encoding information from text
and retrieving it from memory. We expected good readers to approach
text with knowledge about how texts are conventionally organized and a
strategy to seek and use the top-level structure in a particulartext. Use of
the top-level structure was expected to relate to the amount of
information remembered; organization has been shown to be a crucial
variable in learning and memory (Bower, Clark, Lesgold, & Winzenz,
1969; Kintsch, 1977, Chapter 5). In contrast to good readers, poor
readers were expected to approach text without knowledge of texts'

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76 READING
RESEARCH * Number1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/1

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 77

organization and no effective strategy for utilizing the top-level structure

of a passage.
In addition, a group of readers (labeled comprehension
underachievers) were identified who could plausibly fall into Flavell's
(1977) production deficiency category; that is, readers who could use the
top-level structure in text, but would not without explicit prodding.
These readers had vocabulary test scores closer to those of the good
readers, but comprehension text scores closer to those of the poor
readers. They were considered above the poor readers on decoding skills
and thus probably had sufficient available short-term memory capacity
(Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; Kintsch & Vipond, 1979) to interrelate ideas,
but were deficient in this skill.
For this group, we investigated whether or not signals
provided by an author explicitly stating the top-level structure of text
would facilitate use of this structure in their written retellings and the
amount of information recalled. Signaling has been defined as
information in text which does not add new content on a topic, but which
gives emphasis to certain aspects of the semantic content or points out
aspects of the structure of the content (Meyer, 1975a). The types of
signaling identified included explicit statement of the structure of
relations in the text structure, preview statements, summary statements,
and pointer words or evaluative signaling. Signaling of the first type, the
structure of relationships, was the main type manipulated in this study;
no summary statements were presented. In addition, relationships at the
top half of the content structure were signaled rather than subordinate
relationships.
The relationships which occur at the superordinatelevel in the
structure are rhetorical relationships: comparison, causal, description,
collection, and problem/solution (response). (For examples, refer to
Figure 1.) Signaling of these relationships explicitly points them out to
readers; examples of signaling for comparison relationships include "in
contrast," "however," "but," and "on the other hand" and for causal
relationships, they include "therefore,""as a result," "so that," "in order
to," and "because." (See Appendix for examples.) If signaling is not
provided by a writer, then the reader must infer an appropriate logical
relationship among propositions. The primary type of signaling
investigated in this study is parallel to Halliday and Hasan's (1976)
conjunction cohesion; however, it was examined at the macroproposi-
tion level where it interrelates groups of sentences and paragraphsrather
than clauses and sentences at the microproposition level of text structure.

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78 READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY * Number 1, 1980 XVI/1I

Signaling was expected to affect the groups of ninth-grade

students in different ways due to differences in their dominant reading
strategies for determining what is important to remember from text.
Figure 2 depicts reader strategies and their interaction with signaling.
The dominant strategy of good comprehenders on the prose
learning task was hypothesized to be the structure strategy, the strategy
utilized by most college students (Meyer, 1979, Note 7). These students
were expected to follow the text's superordinate relational structure (see
Figure 1) and focus on the text's message and how it relates to supporting
major details. Processing activities hypothesized for the structure
strategy are similar to explanations given for the levels effect
(information superordinate in a hierarchical text structure remembered
better than low level information) by Anderson (1976) and Kintsch and
van Dijk (1978); only primary emphasis is placed on a search for
interrelationships among chunks of complex propositions in text. These
processing activities for the structurestrategy focus on a search for major
text-based relationships among propositions. That is, there is a search for
relationships which can subsume all or large chunks of this information
and tie it into a summarized comprehensible whole. Readers employing
the structure strategy are hypothesized to approach text looking for
patterns which will tie together the propositions contained in the text; in
addition, they search for the author's primary thesis which will provide
the content to be bound by these patterns or schemata. Then, they search
for relationships among this primary thesis and supporting details. For
example, when reading the supertanker text (see Appendix and Figure
1), readersemploying this strategy recognize in the first sentence that the
propositions may fit their problem schema. Each new proposition is
related back to the problem, making the problem of oil spills from
supertankerscontinually selected for retention in the short-term memory
buffer for interpreting the new propositions. Previous knowledge about
problems keeps the readers searching for causal relationships among
descriptiveinformationabout the problem, such as why it is a problem and
what caused it. Also, prior experience with problems leads readers to
anticipate and search for solutions, solutions which must satisfy most of
the previously stated causes of the problem. Thus, the problem and its
causes are retrieved continually from long-term storage to the short-term
memory buffer for relating to the subsequent propositions in the passage.
This additional processing of these superordinate propositions and their
interrelationships increases the depth with which they are processed
(Craik & Lockhart, 1972) and the ease with which they can be retrieved.

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Use of top-level structure MEYER, & BLUTH
BRANDT, 79

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 80 READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY * Number 1, 1980 XVI/1I

The top-level structure and major interrelationships are also employed

by these students (structurestrategy I in Figure 2) to guide retrievaland
production of the recall protocol; it is hypothesized to a top-down
retrieval search guided by the structure of relationships. These students
are assumed to construct memory representations of text propositions
which are similar in terms of their hierarchical relationships to the
content structuredepicted in Figure 1;when recalling the text, they begin
their retrievalsearch with the top-level structureand systematically work
from the superordinate relationships and content downward. As seen in
Figure 2, under predicted free recall outcome, the organization of a
protocol written by a student employing the structure strategy matches
the top-level structure of the text.
In contrast to good comprehenders, poor comprehenders
were hypothesized to follow the default/list strategy (see strategy II in
Figure 2). While the structure strategy is a systematic plan for processing
text, the default strategy is not. The reader has no focus and simply tries
to remember something from the text. As seen in Figure 2, the protocol
organization predicted for readers with the default strategy is different
from the top-level structure of the hierarchically organized text; it is a
list-like 'collection of descriptions about the passage topic with no
attempt to interrelate them.
An alternative strategy to the structure and default strategies
is that of a reader who provides a conceptual structure of relationships
for understanding the text different from that given in a well-organized
text (Meyer & Freedle, Note 1). Although this strategy is of theoretical
and practical interest, it was not expected to emerge in this study since it
has been exhibited rarely by college students in prose learning studies
with well-organized text (Meyer, 1979).
Different effects of signaling were expected for the two
dominant reader strategies. Good comprehenders were expected to
follow the solid lines under structurestrategy in Figure 2 regardless of the
presence of signaling. The basis for this prediction was data on university
students who were also hypothesized to follow the structure strategy.
Signaling in studies with university students has had no effect on amount
of recall (Marshall & Glock, 1978-1979;Meyer, 1975a, 1979, in press-a),
protocol organization (Meyer, 1979), type of information in recall
(Meyer, 1979), ability to answer questions tapping signaled structural
relationships (Meyer, Note 7), nor reading speed (Meyer, 1975a;Britton,
Meyer, Glynn, & Penland, Note 8). However, signaling does appear to
affect cognitive capacity as measured by reaction time to a secondary
task (reactions to random clicks while reading text with and without

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 81

signaling, Britton, Meyer, Glynn, & Penland, Note 8). Good compre-
henders at the ninth-grade level were expected to have no difficulties
figuring out the structure without signaling as indicated by the solid line
in Figure 2.
The dominant strategy of poor comprehenders and under-
achievers in reading comprehension was expected to be the default
strategy. The poor comprehenders were expected to follow the dashed
path in Figure 2. That is, signaling was expected to have no effect because
the structure strategy was not an available strategy for these readers.
However, the reading comprehension underachievers, hypothesized to
fall within the productive deficiency category (Flavell, 1977) on the
structure strategy, were expected to benefit from signaling. For this
group, signaling was expected to enable their use of the organized
structure strategy for learning and remembering text which they
ordinarily could not impose on their own; as seen in Figure 2 (yes
responses under default strategy), signaling was expected to affect
protocol organization and total recall. Marshall and Glock (1978-1979)
found improved recall for junior college students with the presence of
signaled text relationships.

Method
Subjects
A representative sample of 102 ninth-grade students attending
a junior high school in Mesa, Arizona participated in the study. The
students were divided into groups of good, average, and poor
comprehenders on the basis of their performance on the reading
comprehension scale of the Stanford Achievement Test and a district
reading achievement test. The mean grade equivalent on the comprehen-
sion scale of the Stanford Achievement Test for ninth-grade students in
this school was within one month of the National mean grade equivalent
for grade nine students. In addition to test performance, reading and
English teachers rated each student as good, average, or poor in reading
performance; only those students whose standardized test scores and
reading performance appraisal matched in terms of the good, average,
and poor categories participated in the study. The median percentile
scores on comprehension from the Stanford Achievement Test
administered by the district two months prior to our study were 84, 58,
and 32 for the good, average, and poor groups, respectively.
Signaling of the author's top-level structure was hypothesized
to be particularly helpful for students with adequate word knowledge

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82 QUARTERLY* Number 1, 1980
READINGRESEARCH XVI/1I

and word attack skills, but poorer reading comprehension (i.e.,

underachievers). Twenty-six of the 102 students were identified as
belonging to this group. The stanine score of each of these students on the
reading comprehension scale was at least one stanine below their stanine
score on the vocabulary scale of the Stanford Achievement Test. In
addition, in order for students to be selected for this subgroup, their
stanine scores on the vocabulary scale had to be four or greater. The
median percentile score on the reading comprehension scale for this
group was 43, while their median percentile score on the vocabulary scale
was 60.

Materials
Two well-organized passages of expository text with clearly
identifiable top-level structures and appropriate reading levels for ninth-
grade students were selected for the study. Passages with comparison and
problem/solution top-level structures were selected for study; these
structures are found frequently in the text of school materials. The top-
level structure for each passage was identified by analyzing the passage
with the prose analysis procedure described by Meyer (1975a, 1975b).
The comparison (adversative) passage dealt with dehydration and
compared two contrasting views; versions of this passage and its
structure can be found in Meyer (in press-b) and Meyer and Freedle
(Note 1). The problem/solution passage dealt with supertankersand was
a modified version of an article with the same title appearing in Read
magazine (1975), a magazine for reading and English at the junior high
level. The text is reproduced in the Appendix and its structurecan be seen
in Figure 1.
A with-signaling and without-signaling (Meyer, 1975a)
version of each passage was written. In the with-signaling version, the
top-level structurewas explicitly stated; in the without-signaling version,
it was not. For example, the with-signaling version of the supertanker
passage began with "A problem of vital concern is the prevention of oil
spills from supertankers," while the without-signaling version did not
include the words "problem"and "solution" and began with "Prevention
is needed of oil spills from supertankers." In addition, in the with-
signaling version, the three-fold solution was explicitly pointed out to the
reader (see Appendix, underlined words of signaling in the second
paragraphof the supertankerpassage). In the without-signaling version,
the underlined words in the Appendix were deleted so that the
relationships of problem/collection of solutions and comparison to an
incorrect solution were no longer explicit and highlighted. For example,

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Use of top-level structure MEYER, BRANDT, & BLUTH 83

the without-signaling version read "An immediate halt of the use of

tankers on the ocean is not possible since about 80 percent of the world's
oil supply is carried by supertankers. Officers of supertankers must get
top training in how to run and maneuver their ships. Tankers should be
built with several propellers for extra control and backup boilers for
emergency power. Ground control stations should be...." There were
242 words in the with-signaling version including the title, "Super-
tankers,"and 216 words in the without-signaling version which excluded
the title. The same procedure was followed for the passage on the loss of
body water; however, the comparison structure required few words of
signaling. The with-signaling version differed from the without-signaling
version primarily by its inclusion of the phrase, "In contrast to the action
taken by coaches," and the title, "Views Class on Loss of Body Water."
The with-signaling version contained 187 words, while the without-
signaling version contained 169 words.
A recognition test consisted of sentences that represented
verbatim statements, paraphrases, inferences, topically related intru-
sions, and statements unrelated to the topic. The paraphrases were
writtenusing Anderson's(1972) proceduresfor writingcomprehensiontest
questions. The inference sentences represented inferences that we judged
necessary to understand the passages. The intrusions dealt with the same
topic as the information in the passage but were neither discussed nor
implied. The unrelated sentences addressed completely different topics
and were included to see if the students were attending to the task.

Procedure
The students were stratified on comprehension level and sex,
and then a stratified random assignment procedure was used to assign
them to with- or without-signaling versions of the passages and order of
presentation of the two passages. The study was conducted during the
regular English period with students from all experimental conditions
represented in each classroom. Each student received a booklet
consisting of two passages, that had been assigned to the student through
the random procedure prior to the experimental session, and lined pages
for recall.
Each student read one version of the dehydration passage and
one version of the supertanker passage. After reading a passage and
placing it out of sight in a large envelope, the students wrote down all they
could recall from the passage using words remembered from the passage
or their own words. One week later, the students were again asked to
write down all they could remember from the passage. After recalling

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84 READINGRESEARCH * Number 1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/1I

each passage a week after reading it, each student then took a recognition
test for each passage. Students were asked if they recognized the
statements as sentences from the passages read on the prior week and to
give a confidence rating on this task. Thus, a student could rate a sentence
as "yes, certain (5)," "yes, think so (4)," "yes, guessing (3)," "no, guessing
(2)," "no, think so (1)," or "no, certain (0)."

Scoring
The recall protocols were scored using Meyer's (1975a)
scoring procedure; reliability coefficients among three independent
scorers were above .95. In addition to the total number of idea units
recalled from the passage (total recall score), an index was given for the
degree to which the student recalled the most central ideas of the passage.
Idea units recalled corresponding to the top-level rhetorical predicates
and related content at the highest level of the content structure of the
passages were credited two points and major idea units at the second and
third level were credited one point; none of the other lower levels (seven
levels for both passages) were credited. This score was called the central
idea score. A weighted recall score consisted of the sum of a student's
total recall score and central idea score.
The content structures of the passages were divided into thirds
to examine any differences in processing different types of information
between students who did and did not utilize the top-level structure of
text. Levels one and two in the content structures of the passages were
labeled the message. The supporting major details were located in levels
three and four in the content structureand the minor details were located
in levels five and lower. These three types of information are shown on
the supertanker passage in the Appendix.
The top-level structure of each protocol was analyzed to
determine whether or not its top-level rhetorical structure was the same
as that used by the author of the text. An example of the scoring system
for the supertanker passage will be given to clarify the procedure. If the
protocol was organized into two related clusters of ideas, one related to
problems of supertankers and the other related to solutions for these
problems, the protocol's content structure would be organized with a
problem/solution top-level structure and classified as using the same
organization as the author. For those protocols organized with the same
structure as the author's, seven to ten points could be assigned. Ten
points were given if the previous requirements were met and the student
used the words "problem" and "solution" in his or her protocol. Nine
points were given if only "solution" was explicitly stated; eight points

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Use of top-level structure MEYER, BRANDT, & BLUTH 85

were earned if only "problem"was stated and seven points were given if
the above requirements were met, but neither the word "problem" nor
"solution" appeared. Five points were given for a protocol which stated
explicitly or implicitly in one sentence that there was a problem and
solution, but simply listed ideas from the passage without organizing the
problems and solutions in related clusters. Three points were given if
some other conceptually related hierarchical structure was used besides
that found in the original text (list-like collections of descriptions were
excluded from this category); as expected very few (4 of the 408
protocols) fit into this classification. Two points were given for a
protocol where no explicit nor implicit mention was given to problems of
supertankers or proposed solutions and the ideas were organized into a
collection of descriptions about supertankers. One point was assigned to
a protocol that implied no problems nor solutions and presented a
random listing of ideas from the passage which were not collected under
supertankers or any one topic. Protocols scored with five to one points
were classified as not using the author's organization. Reliability
coefficients were .95, .97, and .98 among the three independent scorers
for this measure on 18 randomly selected protocols.

Results
Immediate and Delayed Recall: Analysis of Variance
Separate five-factor analyses of variance were conducted for
each of the passages since they differed on structure type, content,
amount of signaling, and number of idea units. The five factors were
signaling, comprehension level, time of recall, sex, and order of passage
presentation. For the three dependent variables of total recall, central
idea score, and weighted recall for both passages, the main effects of
comprehension level and time of recall were significant at the .0001 level,
but neither the effects of signaling, sex, nor order were statistically
significant. More specifically, for both passages and all dependent
measures, the free recall data clearly supported the groupings of students
into good, average, and poor comprehension groups. For the
supertanker passage, percentages of the total number of idea units
recalled were 34%, 25%, and 15% summed over time of recall for the
good, average, and poor readers, respectively, F(2,78) = 18.02.
Percentages for the central idea score for this passage were 51%, 38%,
and 17% for the three comprehension groups, F(2,78) = 13.07.
Percentages recalled for the total recall score from the dehydration
passage were 41%, 30%, and 17%,F(2,77) = 22.06; for the central idea

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86 READINGRESEARCH *
QUARTERLY Number1, 1980 XVI/ 1

score, they were 70%, 46%, and 27%, F(2,77) = 17.58, for the good,
average, and poor groups of comprehenders, respectively. In addition,
for both passages, significantly more information was recalled
immediately from the passages than one week later (supertanker
immediate total recall M = 31%, delay M = 17%, F(1,78) = 198.09;
dehydration immediate M = 39%,delay M = 18%,F(1,77) = 240.78). For
the supertanker passage, there was a statistically significant time x
signaling interaction which will be discussed later. Other significant
interactions were not consistent among dependent variables, passages,
nor logically interpretable, and will not be discussed further.2
Chi square analyses were utilized to determine whether or not
there were differences in use of the text's top-level structure by good and
poor comprehenders. As shown in Table 1, the majority of good
comprehenders used the same type of top-level structure for organizing
their recalls as the author of the text, while most low comprehenders did
not. In recalls where the text's top-level structurewas not employed, most
(over 99%) were organized into collections of descriptions, the structure
expected for students employing the default strategy (Figure 2).

Table1 Numberof good, average,and poor comprehenderswho used and

did not use the top-leveltext structurein theirimmediateanddelayed
recallsof two passages
Passage
Supertankers Dehydration
Recall's Top- Recall's Top-
Level Structure Level Structure

Comprehension Level Same as Different Same as Different

from Achievement Test Author from Author Author from Author
Immediate Free Recall
Good 22 10 25 7
Average 18 17 15 20
Poor 9 26 4 31
=
72= 12.65, p < .002 2 30.32p< .0001
Delayed Free Recall
Good 19 13 15 17
Average 13 22 9 26
Poor 4 30 2 32
2 =
11.76, p < .003 =2 14.91,p < .001

Table 2 presents the mean total recall scores and standard

deviations obtained by good, average, and poor comprehenders who
used and did not use the text's top-level structure. For all comprehension

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 87

groups, recall conditions, and passages read, the number of ideas recalled
was much greater for students using top-level structures like that of the
text.

Table2 Mean total recall scores and standarddeviationsof good, average,

and poor ninth-gradecomprehenderswho used and did not use the
text's top-levelstructurein their immediateand delayedfree recalls
Passage
Supertankers Dehydration
Recall's Top- Recall's Top-
Level Structure Level Structure

Comprehension Level Same as Different Same as Different

from Achievement Test Author from Author Author from Author
Immediate Free Recall
Good M 60.0 43.9 57.5 44.4
SD 19.4 13.4 13.5 21.5
Average M 49.7 33.2 52.9 34.2
SD 13.9 15.7 16.6 11.6
Poor M 41.8 22.5 55.0 22.7
SD 10.4 12.3 16.8 11.1

Delayed Free Recall

Good M 41.5 26.0 43.8 18.2
SD 18.0 18.6 10.5 13.7
Average M 36.5 16.1 39.1 11.8
SD 15.6 11.2 10.8 9.1
Poor M 24.8 9.8 40.5 7.2
SD 10.8 9.5 6.4 8.3

In addition, students who utilized the text's top-level structure

in their written retellings recalled significantly more message units, major
details, and minor details for both passages at both testing times (p < .05
for all comparisons). Figures 3 and 4 depict these data for the two
passages. Use of the text's top-level structure was related particularly to
recall of the message; for both passages there was a significant
information type x use of structure interaction (p< .0001).
It is plausible that students who used the top-level structureof
the text on the immediate recall task but not on the delayed task would
surpass the performance of those who used it consistently due to the fact
that the former group integrated the information with different prior
knowledge structures. However, the data from both passages did not
support this view. Students who used the top-level structureimmediately
but not a week later performed very similarly on the immediate free recall
test to the group who consistently used the top-level structure; in

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88 READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY * Number 1, 1980 XVI/1

Figure 3.
The effects of the use of the top-level structure immediately and a week after
reading the dehydration passage on the type of information recalled.

.8 -
USE OF TOP-LEVEL STRUCTURE

N = 22 Use Immediate
and Delay
SN = 22 Use Immediate,
.7 '
- Not Delay
N = 53 Neveruse
I-111[[[IfIl-1[[[141
Immediate,
Nor Delay

"- .5
"Immediate

.,.4

o Immediate
o
0
o .3
Delay
Immediate

.2-

Delay

Delay

I I I
Message Major Details Minor Details
Type of Information

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 89

Figure 4.
The effects of the use of the top-level structure immediately and a week after
reading the supertanker passage on the type of information recalled.
.8
USE OF TOP-LEVEL STRUCTURE

N = 27 Use Immediate
and Delay
--------- N = 22 Use Immediate
.7 Not Delay
WII4
44444.IHII4I4I
N= 43 NeverUse
Immediate
Nor Delay

.6 "

. .

o 4

a .3

S Immediate
SImmediate

.2 --

Delay
.1 Immediate

Delay
Delay

0 I I
Message Major Details Minor Details
Type of Information

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90 READING
RESEARCH * Number 1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/1

contrast, on the delayed test, these same students performed like the
group that never used this strategy (see Figures 3 and 4). This finding is
supportive of the argument that use of the top-level structure is
particularly important for facilitating a systematic top-down retrieval
strategy.

Immediate and Delayed Recall: Multiple Regression Analysis

Multiple regression and stepwise regression analyses were
used to examine the predictive power of use of the text's top-level
structure as measured by the ten-point scale described in the scoring
section. Other predictors, entered into the equations, were vocabulary
scores on the Stanford Achievement Test, reading comprehension scores
on the achievement test, sex, and signaling. They were used to predict two
recall measures. The first was recall of major details, a measure devoid of
the potential bias which could occur between message units and use of
structure due to overlap of the problem/solution and comparison
relationships. For all passages and all recall conditions, use of the
author's top-level structure was the best predictor for recall of major
details (see Table 3). For the supertankerpassage on the immediate recall
task, use of the author's top-level structure predicted 12%of the variance
in recall; vocabulary added an additional 2% with no substantial
contribution from the other predictors. On the delayed recall task for this
passage, use of the author's structurein the delayed recalls predicted 48%
of the variance with comprehension test scores as the next best predictor
increasing the predictive power 2%. For the dehydration passage on the
immediate free recall test, use of the author's top-level structurepredicted
16%of the variance in major detail recall with sex adding an additional
2%. For this passage a week later, use of the author's structure predicted
60% of the variance in recall and the next best predictor, sex, could add
only 1%. These data are congruent with the argument that use of the
text's top-level structure is a particularly effective retrieval strategy for
relatively long retention intervals.
The second set of analyses examined the relationships between
a student's use of the text's top-level structure on one passage and the
magnitude of recall from another passage. More specifically, use of the
author's organization on the first passage a subject read was used to
predict total recall on the second passage read. Again, the other
predictors were vocabulary, comprehension, sex, and signaling. Use of
the author's organization on the dehydration passage (comparison top-
level structure)was the best predictor of total recall from the supertanker

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 Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 91

Table3 Regressioncoefficientsfor recallof majordetails

Predictor Multiple R R2 R2 Change Simple R Beta F

Supertanker: Immediate Free Recall

Structure' .35 .12 .12 .35 .244 5.20
Vocabulary .38 .14 .02 .25 .097 .35
Signaling .41 .17 .02 -.20 -.177 3.06
Sex .42 .18 .01 .12 .100 .98
Comprehension .42 .18 .00 .25 .086 .28
Supertanker: Delayed Free Recall
Structure .69 .48 .48 .69 .628 67.19
Comprehension .71 .51 .03 .40 .260 3.62
Sex .72 .51 .01 .15 .079 1.21
Vocabulary .72 .52 .00 .34 -.101 .54
Dehydration: Immediate Free Recall
Structure .40 .16 .16 .40 .396 12.76
Sex .43 .18 .02 -.13 -.125 1.82
Signaling .44 .19 .01 -.12 -.109 1.38
Vocabulary .44 .19 .00 .25 .129 .53
Comprehension .44 .20 .00 .22 -.100 .31
Dehydration: Delayed Free Recall
Structure .77 .59 .59 .77 .744 103.34
Sex .77 .60 .01 .19 .091 1.97
Comprehension .78 .61 .01 .41 .247 4.12
Vocabulary .78 .62 .01 .38 -.191 2.33
Signaling .79 .62 .00 .02 -.048 .55
'Useof author'stop-levelstructure.

passage (problem/solution top-level structure)for both recall conditions

(see Table 4). On the immediate recall task, use of structure predicted
28%of the variance, with comprehension, the next best predictor, adding
7%. On the delayed recall, use of structurepredicted 37%of the variance,
with sex adding an additional 2%. In contrast, vocabulary was the best
predictor when the supertanker passage was read first and use of its top-
level structure was employed to predict recall on the subsequently read
dehydration passage. On the immediate recall task, vocabulary predicted
20% of the variance with use of author's structure, the next best
predictor, contributing an additional 16%. On the delayed recall task,
vocabulary again predicted 20% of the variance in total recall of the
dehydration passage with use of structure adding 7%. As can be noted
from Table 1, a greater percentage of the recalls were organized with the
author's top-level structure on the topic of supertankers (42%) than on
dehydration (34%). Different ease for utilization of the top-level
structure of one passage over the other may be due to differences in the

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92 READINGRESEARCH * Number 1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/1

Table4 Multipleregressioncoefficientsfor use of author'sorganizationon

previouspassageas a predictorof subsequenttotalrecallof a different
passage
Predictor Multiple R R2 R2 Change Simple R Beta F

Supertanker: Immediate Free Recall (N = 48)

Signaling .13 .02 .02 -.13 -.093 .61
Sex .13 .02 .00 -.02 .047 .15
Structure' .55 .30 .28 .54 .324 4.79
Comprehension .61 .37 .07 .53 .056 .06
Vocabulary .64 .41 .04 .56 .345 2.60

Supertanker: Delayed Free Recall (N = 48)

Signaling .05 .00 .00 -.05 -.08 .48
Sex .17 .03 .02 .15 .15 1.63
Structure .63 .39 .37 .61 .54 16.51
Comprehension .64 .41 .02 .39 .21 .99
Vocabulary .65 .42 .00 .34 -.07 .10
Dehydration: Immediate Free Recall (N = 53)
Signaling .12 .01 .01 .12 -.077 .43
Sex .13 .02 .01 .03 -.096 .62
Structure .42 .18 .16 .40 -.290 5.33
Vocabulary .61 .18 .20 .54 -.514 4.58
Comprehension .61 .38 .00 .47 -.056 .16

Dehydration: Delayed Free Recall

Signaling .13 .02 .02 .13 .054 .18
Sex .19 .04 .02 .16 .059 .23
Vocabulary .49 .24 .20 .46 .436 3.03
Comprehension .49 .24 .00 .40 -.074 .08
Structure .56 .32 .07 .43 .302 5.11
'Use of text'stop-levelstructure(measuredby ten-pointscale)on priorrecalltask with differenttext topic.

magnitude of signaling, content factors, such as familiarity, or structural

factors, such as developmental differences in acquisition of the structure
strategy with different discourse types. Regardless, greaterease in the use
of top-level structureon the supertankerpassage probably contributed to
its decreased predictive power for recall scores from the dehydration
passage.

Delayed Recognition Test

Use of the top-level text structure also related to the
recognition data. As seen in Table 5, students using the text's structure
were less likely to claim recognition of intrusions than students who did
not use the text's structurefor their delayed free recall protocol (F(1,95) =
9.33, p <.003, supertankerpassage; F(1,95) = 4.05, p < .05, dehydration
passage). As shown in Figures 3 and 4, students who use the text's top-

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 93

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94 QUARTERLY* Number 1, 1980
READINGRESEARCH XVI/I

level structure remembered more of the passage's message at the delayed

testing. Thus, they had a much better criterion on the delayed recognition
test for judging whether or not an item on the same topic as the text had
actually been stated in the text. However, Table 5 displays no significant
relationship between use of structure and recognition of verbatim
statements.
On the basis of past research (Bransford & Franks, 1971;
Frederiksen, 1975b;Kintsch, 1974), differences were not expected among
the recognition scores of verbatim statements, paraphrases, and
inferences one week after reading the passages; recognition scores on
these sentences were expected to be higher than recognition scores for
intrusions and unrelated sentences. Only the latter prediction was
supported by the data. For both passages on the delayed recognition test,
verbatim sentences were recognized better than any other type of
sentences (p < .001). These data, summarized in Table 5, are more
supportive of Hayes-Roth and Hayes-Roth (1977), who maintain that
the studied wordings of passages are functional components of their
memory representations.
There were consistent differences in the recognition of
inference sentences by the comprehension groups on the two passages.
Good and average comprehenders were less confident in their
recognition of inferences as sentences from the passages than poor
comprehenders, F(2,95) = 4.19, p < .02, supertanker passage; F(2,95) =
3.00, p < .05, dehydration passage. There were no consistent differences
among the comprehension groups on the verbatim statements or
paraphrases for the two passages.

Analysis of Signaling Effects

Effects of signaling were examined through analyses of
variance of total recall scores and structure scores. No signaling effects
were expected for good and poor comprehenders. Signaling effects were
expected for underachieversin reading comprehension; such effects were
also likely for the average comprehenders since the majority of
underachievers fell into this group. Table 6 presents the findings.
For the dehydration passage, signaling had no effect on the
performance of good, average, and poor comprehenders. The super-
tanker passage contained one-third more signaling; for this passage, use
of the author's top-level structure and recall scores on the immediate
recall task appear to be influenced by signaling. Use of the author's
structure as measured by the ten-point scale, F(1,78) = 5.6, p < .02, and

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 95

Table6 Meanrecallof idea unitsfromtext withand withoutsignalsfor good,

average,poor, and underachievingstudents
Passage
Supertankers Dehydration
Comprehension Level With- Without- With- Without-
from Achievement Test Signals Signals Signals Signals
Immediate Free Recall
M 53.4 56.5 54.1 55.2
Good SD 14.9 23.0 13.8 18.6
N 16 16 16 16
M 46.2 35.7 42.4 41.9
Average SD 19.7 9.6 17.8 15.5
N 20 15 20 15
M 31.5 24.7 29.2 25.1
Poor SD 13.4 15.2 12.6 17.6
N 14 20 14 20
M 48.5 33.0 43.8 39.9
Underachievers SD 13.2 14.4 14.2 20.3
N 13 13 13 13
Delayed Free Recall
M 32.4 38.0 27.6 32.8
Good SD 19.7 19.6 18.8 19.6
N 16 16 16 16
M 23.4 24.1 19.6 17.9
Average SD 17.7 14.5 16.2 14.5
N 20 15 20 15
M 10.9 13.1 6.1 11.6
Poor SD 9.4 11.6 9.3 12.4
N 14 20 14 20
M 23.3 22.3 18.8 20.9
Underachievers SD 16.9 15 16.9 15
N 13 13 13 13

total recall, F(1,78) = 7.05, p < .01, were greater for the with-signaling
condition than the without-signaling condition on the immediate recall
task. Mean differences in the total recall scores between the with-
signaling and without-signaling conditions for the supertanker passage
on the immediate recall test were -3.06, 10.48, and 6.55 for the good,
average, and poor comprehenders, respectively. However, this aid of
signaling was not maintained a week later on the delayed test. The
interaction between time, comprehension group, and signaling was not
statistically significant.
For the 26 students identified as underachievers in reading
comprehension, the presence of signaling in the supertanker passage

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96 READINGRESEARCH * Number 1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/I

increased their recall on the immediate free recall task but not one week
later. For total recall scores, the presence of signaling approached
significant levels, F(1,24) = 2.37, p <.14; there was a significant time x
signaling interaction, F(1,24) - 9.33,p <.005. As can be seen in Table 6,
the mean total recall score for the with-signaling condition immediately
after reading the passage was 48, while it was 33 for the without-signaling
condition; on the delayed free recall, differences were minimal. The
model's (Figure 2) predictions were aimed at the immediate free recall
task; different findings at the two recall times suggest that the structure
strategy may be particularly important as a retrieval strategy. Increased
use of the text's top-level structure with signaling was in the predicted
direction, but not statistically significant, time x signaling interaction,
F(1,24) = 2.03, p < .17. Dichotomizing structure use on the immediate
task, nine students who read with-signaling versions used the author's
structure, while four did not. Without-signaling, five used the structure
and eight did not, X2 = 1.39, p < .24, n.s. For the dehydration passage,
signaling had no effect, F(1,24) = .02, p < .89.
In summary, an author's explicit statement of the text's top-
level structure does not affect the retrieval strategy employed by ninth-
grade students a week after reading a passage. However, there is some
indication that greater amounts of signaling assist the learning and
immediate retrieval of students with deficient comprehension skills who
cannot employ the structure strategy without assistance.
Discussion
Four important findings related to the use of the text's top-
level structureresulted from this study. First, less than 50%of the ninth-
grade students sampled utilized this strategy at least once in their reading
and recall tasks, and only 22% utilized it consistently on the four
protocols written. Second, most ninth-grade students, rated by their
teacher and standardized tests as high in reading comprehension skills,
used the same top-level structure for organizing their recall protocols as
the author of the passage, while most students with low reading
comprehension skills did not. Third, students who employed this strategy
of using the text's top-level structure recalled much more information
from the passage than those who did not. Fourth, students who used this
strategy could discriminate better between information consistent with
the semantics of the passage and intruded information on the same topic
than students who did not employ this strategy.
The data show a strong relationship between comprehension
skills and use of the top-level structure in text. In addition, use of the

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 97

text's top-level structure in organizing one's recall of text is highly

correlated with the amount of information recalled. Two recent
dissertations (Bartlett, 1978; McDonald, 1978) support the contention
that this relationship is not only correlative, but causative. McDonald
found that teaching the top-level structure of stories facilitated recall of
poor comprehenders in the primary grades. Bartlett taught ninth-grade
students the expository discourse types of problem/solution, comparison,
antecedent/consequent, and description (Meyer, 1975a, 1977, in press-a,
Note 3; Meyer & Freedle, Note 1). This instruction increased their ability
to identify and use the text's top-level structure and nearly doubled the
amount of information remembered. Instruction effects appeared
durable over an extended period for readers scoring above the 19th
percentile on the vocabulary test of the Stanford Achievement Test.
The ability to utilize the text's top-level structureappears to be
an important organizational strategy for remembering information in
text. A systematic study is needed of its use by different types of readers
with different discourse types. At present, we have looked at this factor
with some adult readers. In a sample of junior college students with text
organized by problem/solution top-level structures (Meyer, Bartlett,
Woods, & Rice, Note 9), more than 50% of the students used this same
type of top-level structure in their recalls; those students who employed
this strategy remembered more than those who did not. Also with these
problem/solution texts, 80% of a sample of 130 college undergraduates
used the same top-level structure as found in these texts (Meyer, 1975a).
In samples of graduate students and college graduates in young, middle,
and old age ranges, most (80-100%) used the same type of top-level
structures as they read in well-organized passages (problem/solution,
comparison, antecedent/consequent, description) (Meyer & Freedle,
Note 1; Meyer, Rice, Knight, & Jessen, Note 10). However, they appear
to be able to employ alternate top-level structures, as evidenced by a
group of graduate students who rejected a proposed solution in a passage
written with a problem/solution structure and employed comparison or
antecedent/consequent top-level structures in their recall protocols
(Meyer & Freedle, Note 1).
Taylor (1980) has looked at use of a text's top-level structure
by fourth- and sixth-grade students and adults with a descriptive passage
(general statements followed by specific examples). Use of the top-level
structure in recalls written immediately after reading the text was 82%,
47%, and 12%for adults, good sixth-grade comprehenders, good fourth-
grade comprehenders, respectively (N = 17 for each group). The good
comprehenders in Taylor's study were reading on grade level and are

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98 READING
RESEARCH * Number1, 1980
QUARTERLY XVI/1

more comparable in comprehension test scores to the average

comprehenders in our study than our good comprehenders. Use of
structure by our average comprehenders was 51% (problem/solution-
supertankers) and 43% (comparison-dehydration).
The ability to employ the structure strategy (see Figure 2) may
develop with age and schooling. Freedle (Freedle & Hale, 1979; Freedle,
Note 11) suggests that competence with story structure precedes
competence with expository structure. Use of the structure strategy may
progress in the following sequence with different discourse types: stories,
description, antecendent/consequent, problem/solution, and comparison
(argumentative text). In the present study, fewer ninth-grade students
used the structure strategy with the comparison passage than the
problem/ solution passage. However, this finding could be attributed to
the uncontrolled factors of passage topic and amount of signaling.
In our study, mastery of the structure strategy probably has
been attained by the ninth-grade students who organized their four recall
protocols with the texts' top-level structure. Others may be approaching
its mastery, but have greaterfacility with certain structuresor topics. The
other students may consist of groups related to Flavell's (1977)
production-mediation deficiency hypothesis. Some may not have used
the strategy because they are unaware of it (default strategy, change = No,
Figure 2). Others may have knowledge of the strategy but be unable to
put it into production without assistance (default strategy, change = Yes,
Figure 2).
This latter group may consist of underachievers in reading
comprehension as well as those average and poor comprehenders who
benefit from the clear and repeated signaling of the top-level structure.
The signaling may provide them with enough assistance to produce this
strategy for the immediate recall task; however, when this assistance is
not available on the delayed task, they cannot employ the structure
strategy on their own to organize retrieval.
The predictions of the model depicting the interaction
between signaling and dominant reader strategies received some support
from the data on the supertanker (problem/solution) passage. As
predicted, signaling had no effect on recall nor structure use of good and
poor comprehenders, but it did increase recall of comprehension
underachieversand tended to increase their use of text structure. For the
dehydration (comparison) passage, the predictions for good and poor
comprehenders held, but signaling had no effect on the comprehension
underachievers. Regardless of the addition of signaling to this passage,
few comprehension underachievers employed the structure strategy.

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 99

Perhaps greater amounts of signaling would have produced the predicted

effects. On the other hand, if the structure strategy develops sequentially
through the discourse types as ordered above, ninth-grade under-
achievers in reading comprehension may not be able to change strategies
on text with comparison structures without more extensive aids, such as
a training program like Bartlett's (1978).
The present study suggests that the use of the structure
strategy, or following the organization of a passage, is important because
it provides ninth-grade students with a systematic learning and retrieval
guide. As suggested by the default strategy of the model and supported by
the data, the ninth-grade students who did not employ the structure
strategy simply tried to list collections of descriptions from the passage
without interrelating them. In contrast, those employing the structure
strategy compared viewpoints or related solutions to components of the
problem, and consequently, developed a rich retrieval network. Use of
the top-level structure at retrieval appeared to provide a systematic top-
down search of a hierarchy similar in many aspects to that depicted for
the text in Figure 1. This top-down retrieval strategy assured recall of the
passage's message, but also facilitated retrieval of details which could be
linked to this organizational structure.
A number of results from the study point to the structure
strategy as an effective mneumonic for retrieval. Use of the text's top-
level structure by subjects to organize their immediate recalls, but not
their delayed recalls, suggests that the structure strategy was employed
for encoding and initial retrieval, but not for retrieval a week later. If the
structure strategy minimally affected retrieval processes, then large
differences would not be expected in delayed recall scores between
subjects who used the structure strategy for all encoding and retrieval
tasks and those who used the structurestrategy for encoding and retrieval
initially, but not for the second retrieval task given one week later.
However, as seen in Figures 3 and 4, these differences were extremely
large. In addition, the importance of the structurestrategy for retrievalis
supported by the finding that use of the text's top-level structureis highly
related to delayed free recall, while not related to the delayed recognition
of verbatim sentences from the text.
In conclusion, this study has presented a methodology for
studying a strategy of learning and recall in which students adhere to the
structure provided by the author. Further research is needed concerning
how this strategy develops and when and where it will prove to be a useful
aid to learning and recall. The usefulness of the top-level structure in
reading requires further investigation with different types of discourse,

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100 READINGRESEARCH * Number 1, 1980
QUARTERLY
purposes, and time limitations. This line of researchappears to have both
practical applications for improving the teaching of reading comprehen-
sion and theoretical value in understanding strategy development and
selection and how people learn and remember discourse.
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Footnotes
'This research was supported by an Arizona State University Faculty Grant. We would like to
thank James DeGracie, Director of Research and Evaluation, Camille Estes, English teacher, and
the staff and students at the junior high school in Mesa, Arizona.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Bonnie J.F. Meyer, Department of Educational
Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85281.
2Significantinteractions for the supertanker passage were order x comprehension group F(2,78)=
3.16, p < .05; time x signaling F(1,78) = 7.05,p <.01; time x order x sex F(1,78) = 3.95,p< .05; time x
signaling x order x sex F(1,78) = 4.77, p < .03; time x signaling x order x comprehension group x sex
F(2,78) = 3.38,p< .04. Significant interactions for the dehydration passage were time x order F(1,77)
= 10.6, p< .002; time x sex F(1,77) = 5.17, p< .03.

Appendix
Supertankers
A PROBLEM OF VITAL CONCERN IS THE PREVENTION OF OIL SPILLS
FROM SUPERTANKERS. A typical supertankercarries a half-million tons of oil and is
the size of five football fields. A wrecked supertanker spills oil in the ocean; this oil kills
animals, birds, and microscopic plant life. For example, when a tanker crashed off the
coast of England, more than 200,000 dead seabirds washed ashore. Oil spills also kill
microscopic plant life which provide food for sea life and produce 70 percent of the
world's oxygen supply. Most wrecks RESULT FROM THE LACK of power and steer-
ing equipment to handle emergency situations, such as storms. Supertankers have only
one boiler to provide power and one propeller to drive the ship.
THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM IS NOT TO IMMEDIATELY HALT THE
USE OF TANKERS ON THE OCEAN since about 80 percent of the world's oil supply is
carried by supertankers. INSTEAD, THE SOLUTION LIES IN THE TRAINING OF

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Use of top-level structure MEYER,BRANDT,& BLUTH 103

OFFICERS OF SUPERTANKERS, BETTER BUILDING OF TANKERS, AND

INSTALLING GROUND CONTROL STATIONS TO GUIDE TANKERS NEAR
SHORE. First, OFFICERS OF SUPERTANKERS MUST GET top TRAINING in
how to run and maneuver their ships. Second, tankers should be BUILT with several
propellersfor extra control and backup boilersfor emergencypower. Third GROUND
CONTROL STATIONS SHOULD BE INSTALLED at places where supertankers
come close to shore. These stations would act like airplane control towers, guiding tankers
along busy shipping lanes and through dangerous channels.

Note. CAPITALIZED = Message; lower case = Major Details; italics = Minor Details;
underlined = Signaling.

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