The impact of guidance during problem-solving prior to instruction on students’ inventions and learning outcomes

Multiple studies have shown benefits of problem-solving prior to instruction (cf. Productive Failure, Invention) in comparison to direct instruction. However, students’ solutions prior to instruction are usually erroneous or incomplete. In analogy to guided discovery learning, it might therefore be fruitful to lead students towards the discovery of the canonical solution. In two quasi-experimental studies with 104 students and 175 students, respectively, we compared three conditions: problem-solving prior to instruction, guided problem-solving prior to instruction in which students were led towards the discovery of relevant solution components, and direct instruction. We replicated the beneficial effects of problem-solving prior to instruction in comparison to direct instruction on posttest items testing for conceptual knowledge. Our process analysis further revealed that guidance helped students to invent better solutions. However, the solution quality did not correlate with the posttest results in the guided condition, indicating that leading students towards the solution does not additionally promote learning. This interpretation is supported by the finding that the two conditions with problem-solving prior to instruction did not differ significantly at posttest. The second study replicated these findings with a greater sample size. The results indicate that different mechanisms underlie guided discovery learning and problem-solving prior to instruction: In guided discovery learning, the discovery of an underlying model is inherent to the method. In contrast, the effectiveness of problem-solving prior to instruction does not depend on students’ discovery of the canonical solution, but on the cognitive processes related to problem-solving, which prepare students for a deeper understanding during subsequent instruction.     

The power of emotions: Can enjoyment and boredom explain the impact of individual preconditions and teaching methods on interest and performance in mathematics?

We investigated students’ emotions as intervening variables between teaching methods, motivational and performance prerequisites, and outcomes. 144 students from German schools were assigned to two conditions. In one condition, students were prompted to develop multiple solutions for modelling problems that were missing information. In the other condition, students had to find one solution for modelling problems that were not missing information. Students’ interest and performance were measured before and after the 5-lesson teaching unit, and students’ enjoyment and boredom were measured during the teaching unit. The path analyses revealed: (1) Students who developed more solutions enjoyed their mathematics lessons more and were less bored than students in the other condition; (2) Enjoyment affected students’ interest and performance at posttest and mediated the effects of prompting them to find multiple solutions on interest at posttest; (3) Students’ enjoyment during learning mediated the effects of prior interest on interest at posttest.     

The differential effects of teaching addition through strategy instruction versus drill and practice to students with and without learning disabilities

Forty-two second-grade general education students and 42 students with learning disabilities (LD) were taught basic, one-digit addition facts (e.g., 5 + 3 = _). Students received instruction via (a) a minimum addend strategy, (b) drill and practice, or (c) control. The effectiveness of the two methods was measured through students' accuracy and latency scores on a posttest and a transfer task (e.g., 5 + 3 + 7 =_). Students with LD improved significantly only in the strategy condition, as compared to drill-and-practice and control conditions, whereas general education students improved significantly both in the strategy and the drill-and-practice conditions as compared to the control condition. However, in the transfer task, students from all groups became significantly more accurate only in the strategy condition, while all students were significantly faster than their control group peers regardless of teaching method. The implications for teachers' differential choices of methods of instruction for students with different learning characteristics are discussed.     

The bright and dark side of writing motivation: Effects of explicit instruction and peer assistance

The authors investigated the impact of explicit instruction and peer-assisted writing on students' writing motivation and self-efficacy for writing. Eleven teachers and their 206 fifth- and sixth-grade students participated in a 2 (explicit instruction vs. writing opportunities without explicit instruction) × 2 (peer-assisted writing vs. writing individually) experimental intervention study with a pretest-posttest design. The four experimental conditions were compared with a business-as-usual (BAU) condition. The five-week interventions were implemented in authentic classes by regular class teachers, who received a prior professional development training. Multilevel analyses showed that students who wrote with a peer were more autonomously motivated at posttest than BAU students. Additionally, BAU students and students receiving explicit instruction were more controlled motivated than students who were offered ample writing opportunities while practicing individually. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed in view of realizing a bright pathway towards autonomous writing motivation.     

Fostering writing in upper primary grades: a study into the distinct and combined impact of explicit instruction and peer assistance

As writing is a complex and resource demanding task, high-quality writing instruction is indispensable from primary grades on to support beginning writers in developing effective writing skills. Writing research should therefore provide teachers and schools with evidence-based guidelines for teaching writing in daily practice. In this respect, the present study first investigates the distinct and combined effectiveness of two instructional writing practices (i.e., explicit instruction and writing with peer assistance). Second, the present study aims to examine differential effects for students with different background characteristics (i.e., gender and general achievement level). Eleven teachers and their 206 fifth and sixth-grade students participated in the study and were randomly assigned to either one of the four experimental conditions (i.e., EI + IND: explicit instruction + individual writing, EI + PA: explicit instruction + writing with peer assistance, IND: matched individual practice comparison condition, and PA: matched peer-assisted practice comparison condition) or the business as usual condition. Multilevel analyses showed that EI + IND, EI + PA, and PA students outperformed the business as usual students. As to the distinct impact of explicit instruction, EI + IND students outperformed IND students at posttest, revealing the effectiveness of explicit instruction. As to the effect of peer-assisted writing, there were no significant differences between the individual writing conditions (EI + IND and IND) and the peer-assisted conditions (EI + PA and PA respectively).     

Promoting elementary school students' autonomous reading motivation: Effects of a teacher professional development workshop

Responding to the declining trend in reading motivation in and beyond the elementary school years, the authors aimed to enhance late-elementary school students' autonomous reading motivation. Toward this end, the authors evaluated the influence of a teacher professional development grounded in self-determination theory on fifth-grade students' (n = 664) autonomous motivation for in-school and leisure-time reading. A quasi-experimental repeated measures design was set up with experimental and control conditions. The experimental condition consisted of teachers participating in a professional development workshop aimed at providing the knowledge and skills necessary to implement an autonomy-supportive and structuring teaching style, whereas the control condition included teachers who continued with their current teaching repertoire. Multilevel piece-wise growth analyses corroborated that students in the experimental group reported increased recreational autonomous reading motivation from pretest to posttest relative to the control group. Additional analyses made clear that boys in particular benefitted from their teachers' professional development.     

Improving seventh grade students’ learning of ratio and proportion: The role of schema-based instruction

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of an instructional intervention (schema-based instruction, SBI) that was designed to meet the diverse needs of middle school students by addressing the research literatures from both special education and mathematics education. Specifically, SBI emphasizes the role of the mathematical structure of problems and also provides students with a heuristic to aid and self-monitor problem solving. Further, SBI addresses well-articulated problem solving strategies and supports flexible use of the strategies based on the problem situation. One hundred forty eight seventh-grade students and their teachers participated in a 10-day intervention on learning to solve ratio and proportion word problems, with classrooms randomly assigned to SBI or a control condition. Results suggested that students in SBI treatment classes outperformed students in control classes on a problem solving measure, both at posttest and on a delayed posttest administered 4 months later. However, the two groups’ performance was comparable on a state standardized mathematics achievement test.     

Do drawing tasks improve monitoring and control during learning from text?

In two experiments it was investigated how drawing as a monitoring task affects self-regulated learning and cognitive load. To this end, participants (Exp. 1: N = 73, Exp. 2: N = 69) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the experimental condition, students were asked to read an expository text on the formation of polar lights consisting of five paragraphs, whereby, after each paragraph, they had to create a drawing of the text's content. In the control condition, students read the same text, but performed no drawing task. In both conditions, students had to give judgments of learning (JoLs) after each paragraph and after reading the whole text as well as rate their cognitive load. Then, they were asked to select paragraphs for restudy. In Experiment 1, participants continued with an assessment of their learning outcomes immediately after their restudy selection, whereas in Experiment 2 they were first given the opportunity to actually restudy the selected paragraphs before working on the posttest. Results of both experiments indicate that JoLs rather than cognitive load predicted posttest performance. Moreover, students in the drawing condition compared with the control condition exhibited more accurate (relative) monitoring in Experiment 1 in that their JoLs were more strongly related to performance. Moreover, JoLs predicted students' restudy decisions in both experiments; however, this effect was by-and-large independent of whether they had to draw. Overall, results hint towards the potential of drawing to support metacognitive monitoring.     

Student performance and attitudes using personalized mathematics instruction

This study investigated the effects of personalized instruction on the achievement and attitudes of Taiwanese students on two-step mathematics word problems. A total of 136 fourth-graders in a Taiwanese public school participated in the study. Subjects initially completed a Student Survey on which they chose their favorite foods, sports, stores, classmates, and other selections. The most popular items were then used to create personalized math word problems for the pretest, personalized instructional program, and posttest. Subjects were blocked by ability based on their pretest scores and were randomly assigned within ability levels to either a personalized or nonpersonalized version of the print-based instructional program. After finishing the program, subjects completed a student attitude survey and the posttest. A repeated-measures univariate analysis of variance revealed that subjects in the personalized treatment made significantly greater pretest-to-posttest gains than those in the nonpersonalized treatment. Subjects also performed significantly better on the personalized pretest and posttest problems than on the nonpersonalized problems. Personalized subjects and higher-ability students both had significantly more positive attitudes toward the instructional program than did their nonpersonalized and lower-ability counterparts. This research was conducted while he was a doctoral student at Arizona State University.     

The need for effective writing instruction

Many students with writing difficulties have negligible editing skills at best. Existing research supports that a strategy approach to teaching writing conventions to students with learning disabilities is effective, particularly when the strategies involve mnemonics. Recognizing that classroom teachers are increasingly overburdened, our study offers an alternative setting for academic intervention – the after-school program – and focuses on an intervention utilizing a mnemonic designed to increase the efficacy of the time spent on editing in the writing process. This study investigates the impact of two instructional conditions on participants' editing skills: (1) the effects of direct instruction regarding writing conventions to a combination of direct instruction and (2) a mnemonic writing strategy from Step up to writing. Both approaches produced significant gains (p < .05). However, the combined approach exhibited a larger effect size of d = .77-.84 at post-test, as measured by TOWL-3 Contrived Composite scores.     

Improving students' reading comprehension skills: Effects of strategy instruction and reciprocal teaching

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of three different forms of strategy instruction on 210 elementary-school students' reading comprehension. Students were assigned to any one of three intervention conditions or to a traditional instruction condition (control condition). Training students were taught four reading strategies (summarizing, questioning, clarifying, predicting) and practiced these strategies in small groups (reciprocal teaching), pairs, or instructor-guided small groups. At both the post- and follow-up test the intervention students attained higher scores on an experimenter-developed task of reading comprehension and strategy use than the control students who received traditional instruction. Furthermore, students who practiced reciprocal teaching in small groups outperformed students in instructor-guided and traditional instruction groups on a standardized reading comprehension test.     

The differential effects of two self‐managed math instruction procedures: Cover,Copy, and Compare versus Copy,Cover, and Compare

This study compared the fluency and error rates produced when using the Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC) and a modified CCC procedure (MCCC) called Copy, Cover, and Compare to complete subtraction math problems. Two second‐grade classrooms consisting of 47 total students participated in the study. The following items were administered to participants: (a) a timed pretest, (b) a timed CCC worksheet, (c) a timed MCCC worksheet, and (d) a timed posttest. Then the participants were asked which procedure they liked best. Results revealed significantly higher digits correct per minute (i.e., fluency scores) on the posttest when compared with the pretest scores. Likewise, students' fluency scores were significantly higher under the CCC condition when compared to the MCCC condition. There were no significant differences in accuracy from pretest to posttest nor between the CCC and MCCC conditions. Discussion focuses on implications for modifying instructional strategies, measuring student progress, implications for practice, and directions for future research. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

“It takes two”: The added value of structured peer-assisted writing in explicit writing instruction

High-quality writing instruction is vital to supporting developing writers as they learn to plan, compose, and revise text. It is equally important that such instruction enhances students’ self-efficacy for writing as well as their motivation to write. The main aim of the present study was to investigate the incremental effect of peer-assisted writing in an explicit writing instruction program on Flemish upper-elementary students’ writing performance, self-efficacy for writing, and writing motivation. A randomized control design, using multilevel analyses, was conducted to determine the differential effectiveness of two experimental writing treatments (EI+PA and EI+IND) compared to a business as usual control condition (BAU). Both experimental writing treatments involved explicit instruction in writing, with students in one condition writing with a peer (EI+PA) and students in the other condition writing individually (EI+IND). Participating classes (N = 431 students, N = 20 teachers) were randomly assigned to the three conditions and students were assessed before and after instruction. EI+PA students outperformed both EI+IND and BAU students on the writing measure in the instructed genre but not in the uninstructed genre. Additionally, although EI+PA students were more confident as to their capability (self-efficacy) to generate ideas when compared to their EI+IND counterparts, EI+PA students’ writing motivation, characterized by internal or external motives, was significantly lower than EI+IND students. The findings of the present study corroborate and extend the limited number of prior studies illustrating the surplus value of peer-assisted writing in explicit writing instruction programs.     

The use of computer-automated reading in reading instruction

This study evaluates the use of computer-automated reading in reading instruction and illustrates a resource role for school psychologists in providing consultative assistance for computer-assisted instruction. A reading specialist serving as the teacher's aide was taught to write computer programs for automated reading on a personal computer with a speech synthesizer. The teacher selected six beginning-reading books for her remedial reading classes with 1st- and 2nd-grade students. Five 1st-grade and five 2nd-grade students, enrolled in a compensatory education program, were randomly assigned to two experimental groups; five 1st-grade and five 2nd-grade students, enrolled in the same program, were randomly assigned to two control groups. The students in the experimental groups received automated reading with their instruction; the students in the control groups received instruction in the same books, without automated reading. Pre- and posttests of word recognition, phrase reading, and reading comprehension were administered. The random selection of 1st-grade students failed to yield comparable groups, and the contrast of adjusted posttest scores was nonsignificant. Analyses of covariance on the reading criteria for the 2nd-grade groups indicated significant achievement gains for the experimental group.     

The relative responsiveness of concrete operational seventh grade and college students to science instruction

Numerous persons have suggested that instruction should match the developmental level of the learner. Are “concrete operational” college students developmentally the same as “concrete operational” seventh grade students thus in need of identical instruction? Matched concrete operational seventh grade and college students were given identical classroom instruction in probabilistic and correlational reasoning. The college students performed significantly better on posttest measures which appeared to require greater processing of information while significant differences did not exist on less difficult items. Level of cognitive development, field independence, and fluid intelligence correlated moderately with posttest performance for the seventh grade students. Field independence and fluid intelligence correlated moderately with posttest performance for the college students but not pretest knowledge of specific biological concepts and cognitive level. It was concluded that college students are more responsive to instruction due either to (1) greater amount of experience or (2) greater information processing capacity. Implications for science teaching are discussed.     

An online adaptive learning environment for critical‐thinking‐infused English literacy instruction

Critical thinking (CT) and English literacy are two essential 21st century competencies that are a priority for teaching and learning in an increasingly digital learning environment. Taking advantage of innovations in educational technology, this study empirically investigates the effectiveness of CT‐infused adaptive English literacy instruction using a Moodle system. A one‐group pretest–posttest design was employed to evaluate the effect of the treatment on students' acquisition of CT skills (CTS) and English literacy. A total of 83 students enrolled in two sections of a general studies course at a large university in Taiwan participated in the semester‐long experiment. Adaptive learning was achieved through the use of an online Moodle system for (1) online grouping (based on pretest English literacy scores), (2) delivery of specifically designed adaptive learning materials for each group and (3) provision of individualised feedback. CT‐infused language activities based on social constructivist principles were designed for each level of adaptive instruction, whereas direct instruction for fostering CTS was provided in class and practiced or reflected upon in groups. Empirical results demonstrate that CT‐enhanced adaptive English literacy instruction simultaneously improved students' CTS and English literacy and that students' online discussions developed towards higher levels of interaction. This paper illustrates an effective blended learning model for adaptive instruction and offers recommendations for designing CT‐infused language learning activities that can successfully foster both CT and English literacy outcomes.     

Measurable Outcomes of Two Methods of Teaching Experimental Geometry

Analytic and nonanalytic dimensions of cognitive styles and discovery and expository teaching strategies were combined to form a 2 x 2 design. Five tests were used. Subjects were selected according to their cognitive styles in each of the two experimental schools. After seven weeks of mathematics instruction, two periods of one-hour duration per week, the students’ posttest scores were analyzed to determine the effects of the two cognitive styles as well as the two teaching methods on retention and transfer of mathematics tasks. The ANCOVA showed significant F ratios for the main effect of cognitive style. Analytic boys in the expository group scored significantly higher than nonanalytic students. The analyses revealed no significant main effect of teaching methods. In no instance was a significant difference found for girls in respect to cognitive styles or teaching methods.     

Inductive Reasoning in Third Grade: Intervention Promises and Constraints

The results of two evaluation studies with respect to a programme for enhancing inductive reasoning ability of third grade students are presented. The programme is a classroom version of the German programme ‘Denktraining für Kinder 1’ (Cognitive training for children; Klauer, 1989). In the first formative evaluation study, two experimental groups with 30 students in total and one control group with 9 students were involved. Observations during the lessons, and teachers' reports showed that teachers were able to implement the programme. Both experimental groups significantly outperformed the control group on a posttest immediately after the programme and on a follow-up test 3 1/2 months later. Further analyses of the data revealed tentative evidence of the superiority of a direct teaching method. In the second summative evaluation study, the same programme was applied to a larger sample (experimental groups: n = 99 in total; and control groups: n = 232 in total) of third grade students. On the basis of Study 1, the programme instructions were slightly changed. The experimental groups scored significantly higher on a posttest three months after completion of the programme.     

Primary teachers' attitudes toward the direct instruction construct

In this survey we sought to investigate the extent to which primary school teachers working in Adelaide's northern suburbs (mainly lower SES) would relate to direct instruction as a viable teaching method in their professional work. Through approaches in school staffrooms, 150 questionnaires were distributed and 58 of these were returned via mail. A Likert-scale was used with five positive and six negative items, and a single factor resolution was evident. It was possible to identify 11 (19%) respondents exhibiting varying degrees of negative attitude, and 47 (81%) exhibiting varying degrees of positive attitude. Attitudes to direct instruction correlated positively with teachers' years of experience (r=0.34), and with a checklist measure tapping actual knowledge of the components of direct instruction as described by Rosenshine (r=0.63). Female teachers reported more positive attitudes than male teachers. Item analysis indicated a consistent pattern of generally positive orientation towards direct instruction, except in the case of one item, “Direct instruction is an effective method with all students,” which elicited an agreement level of only 39%.     

Second Graders Learn Animal Adaptations through Form and Function Analogy Object Boxes

This study examined the use of form and function analogy object boxes to teach second graders (n = 21) animal adaptations. The study used a pretest–posttest design to examine animal adaptation content learned through focused analogy activities as compared with reading and Internet searches for information about adaptations of animals followed by making an informative puppet play. Students participated in six week‐long lesson sets, each addressing adaptations of two animals, which alternated between the two conditions. In the analogy condition, students matched cards explaining form and function analogies of animal body parts or homes to analogous manufactured items. They mapped analogies, thought of alternate manufactured items, and created new analogies. Students scored similarly on material to be taught through both conditions on the pretest, but made significantly higher posttest mean scores (76.1% analogy versus 57.2% traditional condition) with large effect size (partial η² = 0.58) on animal adaptation content learned through the analogy activities. This study shows the usefulness of form and function analogies in teaching product innovations to second‐grade students, indicating that early childhood students are able to successfully engage in sophisticated analogy activities. Efficacy of the analogy activities was related to objects that focused attention, motivated, and gave concrete representations of concepts; to cards and graphic organizers for organization, connections, and memory; and to complex thinking activities that challenged students and promoted peer interaction.