What happens when university students try to answer prequestions that accompany textbook material?

University students read a textbook chapter. Before reading, subjects in the prequestions-answered condition responded to prequestions about the chapter. Prequestions-read subjects read but did not attempt to answer these same prequestions before reading the chapter. Control subjects were not provided prequestions. Following reading, the subjects took a post-test over the chapter, with half the test questions based on prequestions and half covering material that was not prequestioned. Prequestions-answered subjects significantly outperformed control subjects on recall of material that was prequestioned, regardless of whether the prequestion had been answered correctly before reading. There were no prequestions-read versus control differences on questions relevant to prequestioned content and no experimental effects at all on questions over material that was not prequestioned. In general, these data are consistent with theoretical claims that prior knowledge activation increases learning and that activated but incorrect prior knowledge does not interfere with learning new content that is inconsistent with the activated prior knowledge. The data particularly provide support for the instructional practice of encouraging readers to attempt to answer prequestions before reading.