Exploring the effects of concreteness fading across grades in elementary school science education

The present study investigates the effects that concreteness fading has on learning and transfer across three grade levels (4–6) in elementary school science education in comparison to learning with constantly concrete representations. 127 9- to 12-years-old elementary school students studied electric circuits in a computer-based simulation environment, where circuits remained concrete (bulbs) throughout the learning or faded from concrete to abstract (bulbs to resistors). The most important finding was that the outcomes seemed to be influenced by a developmental factor: the study found a significant interaction between condition and grade level in relation to learning outcomes, suggesting that the outcomes generally improved as a function of grade level, but that there were notable differences between the conditions regarding the improvement of outcomes across the three grades. According the results, learning with constantly concrete representations either took less time or resulted in better learning compared to concreteness fading. Because transfer is one of the central arguments for concreteness fading, a somewhat surprising finding was that the concrete condition succeeded at least as well as the fading condition on transfer tasks. The study also discusses why the results and issues related to the conceptualisation and operationalisation of central concepts in the study call for caution towards generalization and for more research with young learners across different grades.     

Training self-regulated learning skills with video modeling examples: Do task-selection skills transfer?

Self-assessment and task-selection skills are crucial in self-regulated learning situations in which students can choose their own tasks. Prior research suggested that training with video modeling examples, in which another person (the model) demonstrates and explains the cyclical process of problem-solving task performance, self-assessment, and task-selection, is effective for improving adolescents’ problem-solving posttest performance after self-regulated learning. In these examples, the models used a specific task-selection algorithm in which perceived mental effort and self-assessed performance scores were combined to determine the complexity and support level of the next task, selected from a task database. In the present study we aimed to replicate prior findings and to investigate whether transfer of task-selection skills would be facilitated even more by a more general, heuristic task-selection training than the task-specific algorithm. Transfer of task-selection skills was assessed by having students select a new task in another domain for a fictitious peer student. Results showed that both heuristic and algorithmic training of self-assessment and task-selection skills improved problem-solving posttest performance after a self-regulated learning phase, as well as transfer of task-selection skills. Heuristic training was not more effective for transfer than algorithmic training. These findings show that example-based self-assessment and task-selection training can be an effective and relatively easy to implement method for improving students’ self-regulated learning outcomes. Importantly, our data suggest that the effect on task-selection skills may transfer beyond the trained tasks, although future research should establish whether this also applies when trained students perform novel tasks themselves.     

Concreteness Fading of Algebraic Instruction: Effects on Learning

Learning algebra is difficult for many students in part because of an emphasis on the memorization of abstract rules. Algebraic reasoners across expertise levels often rely on perceptual-motor strategies to make these rules meaningful and memorable. However, in many cases, rules are provided as patterns to be memorized verbally, with little overt perceptual support. Although most work on concreteness focuses on conceptual support through examples or analogies, here we consider notational concreteness—perceptual-motor supports that provide access into the dynamic structure of a representation itself. We hypothesize that perceptual support may be maximally beneficial as an initial scaffold to learning so that later static symbol use may be interpreted using a dynamic perspective. This hypothesis meshes with other findings using concrete analogies or examples, which often find that fading these supports over time leads to stronger learning outcomes. In an experiment exploring this hypothesis, we compared gains from the fading out of dynamic concrete physical motion of symbols during instruction with the introduction of motion over the course of instruction. In line with our theoretical perspective, concreteness fading led to significantly better achievement than concreteness introduction after Day 2 of the intervention.     

The Effects of Concreteness on Mathematical Manipulative Choice

There is mixed evidence as to whether concrete manipulatives (e.g., toy animals) are better than abstract manipulatives (e.g., counters) for teaching mathematical concepts to children. Concreteness is defined as the amount of extraneous information a manipulative provides, and in this study we aimed to unpick which dimensions of concreteness influence manipulative choice. Researchers, teachers, and parents completed a comparative judgment task comparing images of manipulatives varying in different dimensions of concreteness, selecting which they would choose to teach arithmetic to children. The findings indicated homogeneous, 3-dimensional manipulatives were the most preferred across all groups to teach arithmetic to children, regardless of more extraneous features. This contradicts research recommendations to minimize the use of concrete manipulatives due to their distractive qualities. Instead, it suggests that some concrete features may be preferred in more naturalistic contexts. More research is required to investigate how different dimensions of concreteness influence learning outcomes for children both in artificial research contexts and in practice.     

Influence of word meaning on the acquisition of a reading vocabulary in second-grade children

The acquisition of a reading vocabulary for abstract and concrete words was examined in 62 second-grade children. Words had been learned as part of a basal reader program or as part of outside reading. Word recognition speed and reading accuracy were examined for abstract and concrete words using lexical decision and word naming tasks. The size of the concreteness effect was similar for both processing tasks. In neither task did concreteness influence reaction times, but abstract words were read with less accuracy than concrete words in both tasks. Further, these concreteness effects in reading accuracy were larger for words that were part of a basal reading program than for words acquired during free reading. We conclude that word meaning influences the entry of words at a time when children are developing a sizeable reading vocabulary.     

Training the use of interactive videos: effects on mastering different tasks

This study was concerned with identifying prerequisites for the successful use of videos that offer different levels of interactivity. In a homework scenario, 64 ninth graders participated either in a search training demonstrating the efficient use of features facilitating the selection of relevant information or in a control training focusing on the integration of new information with prior knowledge. Following the training, the participants used either a common video that allowed them to control the transient flow of the information via stop and browsing or an enhanced video that additionally facilitated the localization of information via chapter selection and an index. Overall, the students wrote two essays (Essay 1: summary; Essay 2: argument) and performed a search task. The study revealed that, independent of the training condition, students benefitted from the enhanced video for the search task which merely required naming isolated facts. Moreover, in a summary task, the enhanced video resulted in the consideration of information from more different chapters when the task required gathering information from the video; however, this broader consideration of chapters only translated into naming more information after the search training. The data of a second essay requiring inferences about the video’s contents (argument) were not analyzed due to a floor effect. Taken together, these results indicate that the characteristics of a task as well as the students’ knowledge of respective search strategies need to be considered when implementing interactive features in video environments.     

The Influence of Achievement Goal Orientations and Task Concreteness on Situational Interest

This study investigated changes in elementary school students’ (n = 140) situational interest as a function of achievement goal orientation profiles and task characteristics. The authors repeatedly measured situational interest during a simulated science learning task in 2 task conditions that differed in the concreteness of the task elements. The authors identified 3 groups of students with different goal orientation profiles: success-, mastery-, and avoidance-oriented. Results of repeated-measures analysis of covariance showed that students with different profiles displayed different patterns of changes in situational interest in the 2 task conditions. The results confirmed the importance of acknowledging the interaction of student and task characteristics in the arousal and maintenance of situational interest across a learning task.     

Measures of cognitive structure: Do they assess learning at the level of comprehension?

One purpose of this study was to determine whether cognitive structure, assessed by psychometric measures of concept interrelatedness, can be developed when the students initially do not know what concept relationships exist and what they mean. The second purpose was to apply those measures to a learning situation that has produced a nonspecific transfer effect, i.e., the facilitative effect of concrete examples on learning abstract passages, to attempt to explain this effect more completely. Five groups of 20 students each read two prose passages and took recall and structure assessment tests on the second passage. Results (1) indicated that the nonspecific facilitative transfer effect was replicated and (2) offered some support for the contention that the cognitive structure which proximity measures assess can be trained to correspond to content structure, but that related recall remains low. With resolution of some of the methodological issues surrounding these measures, however, clearer explanation of transfer effects and assessment of higher order learning may be facilitated.     

Integration of component learnings into a hierarchical rule structure: The role of concept label similarity

Three experiments were conducted with 30, 72, and 112 10th-grade students respectively, for Experiments 1, 2, and 3. These experiments investigated the role of concept labels and selection cues similarity in the integration of two component learnings thought to constitute a hierarchical rule structure (A-C). The A-C task was decomposed into two components: a double classification with concept-labeling (A-B) and a contingent-rule with attribute-naming (B′-C). Training with the A-B₁ of high similarity retarded the A-C rule learning because of “confusable codes” presumably developed and used in syntagmatic mediating links {ie23-1}. In contrast, training with the A-B₃ of low similarity facilitated the A-C learning owing to “distinctive codes” presumably developed and used in the B B′. The transfer effects of the B′-C task variants used were minimal.     

Commentary

Abstract

The author investigated whether situated instruction produces more usable, transferable knowledge than instruction that is abstracted from the context of its use. To test that theory, 220 Grade 7 students were instructed on the topic of causality. Half the students were taught how to determine whether a research study shows a cause-and-effect relationship under the situated-learning model. The remaining students were taught the same concept under the abstracted instruction model. An additional factor, teaching for transfer, also was investigated. Although there were significant differences in learning immediately following instruction, there were no differences on the transfer task due to instructional condition or transfer training. Of the 194 participants who completed the transfer task, only 2 students spontaneously transferred their learning.     

Cross-modal transfer as a function of similarities between training tasks in classical conditioning of the rabbit

The present experiments examined transfer of training from visual to auditory sensory modalities in classical conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response. Experiment 1 examined transfer from initial training with a single visual CS to subsequent auditory discrimination training, and Experiment 2 examined transfer from visual discrimination training to auditory discrimination training. The major findings were that (1) initial conditioning of a visual CS facilitated the overall rate of CR acquisition to the auditory CSs separate from the requirements for discrimination learning (Experiments 1 and 2), and (2) initial visual discrimination training facilitated auditory discrimination learning (Experiment 2). Thus, the animals appeared to encode separately both contiguous CS-US relations and CS+ versus CS? relations during initial visual training. The results are discussed with respect to theories of extradimensional transfer.     

Cognitive process development as measured by an adapted version of Wechsler's Similarities test

This paper studies the development of taxonomic processing as measured by an adapted version of the Wechsler Similarities subtest, which distinguishes between categorization of concrete and abstract words. Two factors — age and concreteness — are also tested by a recall task. The results show an age-related increase in taxonomic categorization, especially for abstract words; this change is more pronounced for the categorization task than for the recall task. The concreteness effect is also shown to be greater for categorization. A weak correlation between the recall of concrete and abstract words suggests that different processes are linked to dual coding of concrete words. However, the strong correlation between the categorization of concrete and abstract words testifies to a general factor in this task. Finally, age- and concreteness-related effects increase as the task gains in complexity. In conclusion, we discuss the role of immediate memory in cognitive functioning.     

行动学习法的内涵、本质与特征

行动学习是一个以完成预定的工作为目的,在同事的支持下持续不断地反思与学习的过程。行动学习法不仅是一种通过项目解决问题的方法,而且是改变自己的工作和职业方向以及处理工作中的矛盾冲突的有效手段,是一种自我发展的有用工具。作为一种教师培训的模式,行动学习法具有反思性、行动性、合作性、主体性、参与性、操作性、综合性等特征。     

Individual differences: Either relational learning or item-specific learning in a same/different task

Three pigeons were trained in a three-item simultaneous same/different task. Three of six stimulus combinations were not trained (untrained set) and were tested later. Following acquisition, the subjects were tested with novel stimuli, the untrained set, training-stimulus inversions, and object shape and color manipulations. There was no novel-stimulus transfer—that is, no abstract-concept learning. Two pigeons showed partial transfer to untrained pairs and good transfer to stimulus inversions, suggesting that they had learned the relationship between the stimuli. Lack of transfer by the third pigeon suggests item-specific learning. The somewhat surprising finding of relational learning by 2 pigeons with only six training pairs suggests restricted-domain relational learning that was controlled more by color than by shape features. Individual differences of item-specific learning by 1 pigeon and relational learning by 2 others demonstrate that this task can be learned in different ways and that relational learning can occur in the absence of novel-stimulus transfer.     

感觉经验缺失对视力、听力障碍学生概念表征的影响

通过概念特征自由联想实验,比较了视力、听力障碍学生和普通学生的具体事物概念表征的差异。结果表明:(1)与普通学生相比,视力、听力障碍学生联想的特征数量少,分布分散。(2)视力、听力障碍学生的概念表征受感知觉经验缺失的影响,概念表征具有明显的通道差异。聋生的听觉通道的概念特征显著少于普通学生,盲生的触觉通道的概念特征显著多于普通学生和聋生。(3)在感觉代偿和语言学习的帮助下,视力、听力障碍学生能够形成对缺失感觉通道信息的概念的表征。     

Calibration to Task Complexity: The Role of Epistemic Cognition

Abstract

We examined the role of epistemic cognition in calibration to task complexity before and during learning. Sixty-six undergraduate students were presented with two learning tasks—a simple task and a more complex task—in random order. Prior to learning, offline measures of learners’ epistemic beliefs about climate change were taken. An open-ended questionnaire was then used to capture task definitions, goals, and plans. To assess online epistemic cognition and learning strategies used during learning, a think-aloud protocol was employed. Results showed that epistemic beliefs before learning predicted epistemic cognition during learning. Further, results demonstrated that calibration to task complexity before learning was not related to epistemic beliefs but was related to epistemic cognition during learning. These findings suggest that individuals engage in epistemic cognition during learning to better understand the nature of the knowledge to be learned and that this results in better calibration of learning processes to task complexity.     

Impact of a new integrated medicine program on students’ approaches to learning

This paper presents the results of a study on the impact of a new integrated medical educational design on students’ approaches to learning. Although the new program was based on curriculum features identified in the research literature as likely to promote deeper approaches to learning, the results revealed a more complex response from students. While a proportion of students reacted as expected and changed to deeper approaches, a significant subgroup moved in the opposite direction and adopted more surface approaches. Further analysis revealed that specific features of the new curriculum – integration of content, requirement for both independent and collaborative learning – were likely to polarise students. The findings suggest that shifting students towards deeper approaches to learning may be a more complex task than previously understood. The authors suggest some ways in which such major curriculum change may be moderated so that all learners are more likely to benefit.     

Structural enhancement of learning

Structural learning aids, such as interactive overviews (IOs), have previously been shown to facilitate text comprehension and recall. In this study, we examined the effects of structural aids on learners’ structural knowledge and their performance on a procedural transfer task. In Experiment 1, 90 college students were presented definitions of computer programming concepts in an IO that was structured alphabetically, randomly, or in accordance with experts’ structural knowledge. Learning was assessed by examining students’ acquired knowledge structures and performance on a procedural transfer task that required integration and elaboration of the learned material in ways that went beyond the strictly definitional information provided during training. Students taught with the expert-structured IO acquired better knowledge structures and performed better on the transfer task than those using the other IOs. Experiment 2, utilizing 101 college students, showed that the visible structure, rather than the navigational constraints, of the expert IO was largely responsible for this advantage.     

Reading comprehension instruction: summarization and self-monitoring training for students with learning disabilities.

Forty-five middle-school students with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to one of three reading-comprehension training conditions: (a) summarization training, (b) summarization training with a self-monitoring component, or (c) traditional instruction. All students were interviewed before and after training regarding the strategies they typically employ during reading comprehension; during one training session, "think aloud" protocols were collected. Results indicated that students with learning disabilities trained in summarization procedures performed statistically higher on all dependent measures. In addition, on some transfer measures, students who were trained in the monitoring component statistically outperformed those with only the summarization training.