Incidental Learning From Classroom Visuals Among Fourth Grade Students

Abstract

This study investigated whether fourth grade students can recall information to which they have been visually exposed in their classrooms without the teacher ever having directly taught the information. Two hundred and eighty-one students in fifteen classrooms were given a pretest on the names of the countries of South America and the names of twelve western state capitals. The month long treatment consisted of a map and a chart mounted prominently on the walls. At the end of the treatment, the pretest was readministered as a post test. A t test indicated that the students exhibited a significant growth in the amount of information they knew. They recalled information that they had been exposed to only in an incidental manner.