ASSESSING LD STUDENTS' PROMPTED AND UNPROMPTED STRATEGY APPLICATION TO MICROCOMPUTER-PRESENTED VARYING-RESPONSE-EXPECTATIONS (METACOGNITION, READING)

Research on psychological processing deficits has focused on theories of how learning disabled (LD) students differ from typical learners, generally through comparison studies of LD and non-LD (NLD) groups. Researchers have suggested that LD students perform more poorly than their age-mates due to an inefficient use of appropriate learning strategies. In this study, limitations of the intergroup-comparison approach were discussed. An alternative method, focusing on a rationally defined subtype, was used to assess if an LD subgroup could be identified based on deficient performance in relation to varying-response-expectancy (VRE) tasks. Performance of 8- to 10-year-old LD poor readers was compared with same-age NLD-poor and NLD-average readers using microcomputer-presented paired stimuli. Students indicated if pairs were the "same" or "not the same" by pressing a button under the monitor-displayed words "yes" or "no".;While support for the discriminating role of the VRE condition was indicated, no reading group performed more poorly in the baseline or Task 1 condition. Subsequent-task comparisons showed that all low-predictor-task subgroups scored more poorly than both middle and high subgroups. However, the uniqueness of the LD reading group in failing to efficiently handle this dimension was unsupported. The study suggested that future LD-subgroup research along metacognitive lines warrants serious considerations.;In the baseline condition the response-cue location remained stationary. For Tasks 1, 2, and 3 the response-cue location varied between two positions on the monitor. Baseline and Task 1 differed from Tasks 2 and 3 in that geometric shapes and letter strings were presented, respectively. Instructions on the varying characteristic of the response position preceded Task 3. For analyses of Task 2 and 3 performance, students were intragroup rank ordered into thirds based on Task 1. It was hypothesized that (a) LD students, as a group, would apply less efficient strategies for dealing with the VRE condition; (b) the LD subgroup which performed poorest on the initial predictor task would perform poorer than other subgroups on subsequent tasks; and (c) strategy prompting would least benefit the low subgroup.