Students' recall from science text

A major feature of instruction in science education is the assignment of reading materials; yet relatively little is known about what students' recall from their reading. The purpose of this study was to develop a description of what students recalled from‐reading expository science text and to search for different groups of students who recalled the same propositions. The expectation of different groups was based on recent developments in schema theory. Thirty‐eight grade 11 physics students read and then recalled content related to energy transfer. Each student's recall was tape recorded and analyzed to identify the propositions recalled. Cluster analysis procedures were used to identify groups of students who recalled the same propositions. There were four groups of students found, each organized around a different empirical event students recalled from the text. Two groups recalled an elaborated description of an even that actually had been only briefly described in the text. Notably absent in all groups was the theoretical content related to the main theme of the text.