Two questions were investigated: (1) Is the timing of the opportunity for the learner to integrate procedural content on the application level related to performance on tasks of high complexity? (2) Is the timing of the opportunity for the learner to integrate procedural content on the application level related to performance on tasks of low complexity?

The content used in both treatment conditions was procedures involved in checking accounts. Following a task analysis, the content was sequenced according to the two treatment conditions. Two teachers delivered both sets of instruction once. Following completion of five one-hour training sessions, test instruments were administered to assess performance on tasks of low complexity and high complexity.

A two (Teacher 1, Teacher 2) by two (OCI Sequence, TCI Sequence) factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze performance measures. For both simple and complex tasks, the ANOVA showed no significant difference that could be attributed to content sequence.

The rationale for this study was based on the concept of assimilation-to-schema. This theory predicts that learning effectiveness will be increased by providing a complete but general version of the content prior to providing the specific of the content. Application of this learning theory can result in a general-to-detailed content sequence. This sequence can be contrasted to a parts-to-whole sequence which provides a complete version of the content following presentation of all parts of the content. A general-to-detailed sequence can be said to provide ongoing content integration while a parts-to-whole sequence can be said to provide terminal content integration.

This study was designed to investigate relationships between content sequence as it contributes to content integration and procedural learning. Given that content sequence is fundamental to any intentioned learning situation, the relationship between organization and eventual integration of the content is of primary concern. Nowhere is the concern more evident than in consideration of procedural learning where the failure to integrate a single step into an overall procedure can result in an inability to correctly or completely apply a procedure or set of procedures.

The subjects for this study (N = 103) were from a population of middle school students. One treatment condition was instruction on content sequenced to provide ongoing content integration on the application level (OCI Sequence). The other treatment condition was instruction on content sequenced to provide content integration upon completion or termination of instruction (TCI Sequence).