EXAMINING THE USE OF SPACING EFFECT TO INCREASE THE EFFICIENCY OF INCREMENTAL REHEARSAL

Incremental rehearsal (IR) is a highly effective intervention that uses high repetition and a high ratio of known to unknown items with linearly spaced known items between the new items. It has been hypothesized that narrowly spaced practice would result in quick learning, whereas items that are widely spaced would result in longer‐term retention. The current study examined the effect of spacing by teaching vocabulary words to 36 fourth‐grade students. Each student was randomly assigned to a widely spaced IR condition (i.e., one unknown item, one known item, one unknown item, two known items, one unknown item, three known items, and an increase in the number of known items presented each time by one) or an IR condition in which spacing increased exponentially (IR‐Exp; i.e., one unknown item, one known item, one unknown item, two known items, one unknown item, four known items, and one unknown item, eight known items). The results indicated that the students in the study retained twice as much information with the widely spaced IR than with the IR‐Exp condition, but the latter required half as much time. IR and IR‐Exp were equally efficient, but IR continues to be superior to all other flashcard approaches in improving retention.     

Teaching abstract vocabulary with the keyword method: effects on recall and comprehension

Twenty-five adolescents with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to either a keyword mnemonic condition or an experimenter-directed rehearsal condition and were individually taught 16 difficult vocabulary words, including 8 concrete and 8 abstract words. After an instructional period, students were given a test of literal recall as well as a comprehension test of their ability to apply newly acquired vocabulary words in a different context. Results indicated that mnemonically trained students outperformed control students on both abstract and concrete words, and on recall tests as well as on comprehension tests. Implications for vocabulary instruction as well as theories of learning disabilities are discussed.     

Students' views on the efficiency of instruction: An exploratory survey of the instructional metacognitive knowledge of university freshmen

Students have conceptions about the relationship between instructional interventions and learning or, in other words, students have instructional metacognitive knowledge. In this study, the efficiency of instructional interventions has been investigated as a specific object of students' instructional metacognitive knowledge. By means of a survey, conceptions about the efficiency of various instructional interventions of 488 freshmen in educational sciences and psychology have been investigated. Two research questions directed this exploratory study: (1) How do students assess the efficiency of instructional interventions; and (2) Do differences in gender, educational background, and/or subject of study affect evaluations of the efficiency of instructional interventions. Results show that respondents regard regular instructional interventions at the university directed toward, or supporting, surface-level processing and reproduction to be highly efficient. The use of technology is conceived as inefficient by these students. The limited number of differences between groups of students also suggests students' conceptions to be both consistent and robust.The study illustrates the need to investigate instructional metacognitive knowledge as distinct from other forms of metacognitive knowledge, and raises questions about the major components and structure of instructional metacognitive knowledge and individual differences in it. The findings suggest the need for the elaboration of a framework to describe instructional interventions.     

Comparison of phonic analysis and whole word‐reading on first graders' cumulative words read and cumulative reading rate: An extension in examining instructional effectiveness and efficiency

This study compared the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of three word‐reading interventions on cumulative number of words read accurately and cumulative learning rate. Participants were six first graders who needed intensive intervention services. Alternating treatment designs were used to compare the effects of interspersal drill, a phonic analysis method consisting of word boxes (WB), and traditional drill and practice procedure on word‐reading performance. The current study extended this line of inquiry by including a phonic analysis condition and a measure of generalization. Results revealed that four students' cumulative word‐reading performances were greater under the phonic analysis condition. However, all students' cumulative rate of reading words was greater under the traditional drill and practice condition. As a group, there were no significant differences across conditions on maintaining and generalizing words. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 319–332, 2007.     

Computer‐assisted tutoring: Teaching letter sounds to kindergarten students using incremental rehearsal

The profound consequences of early reading failure necessitate the provision of early literacy interventions to struggling readers. Many schools struggle, however, to address early reading difficulties because of insufficient human resources. Accordingly, the present study investigated the effectiveness of incremental rehearsal (IR) as a Tier 3 intervention to improve letter sound knowledge and fluency with four kindergarten students. Four participants not making adequate progress toward letter sound fluency benchmarks were selected for an IR intervention targeting letter sounds that was delivered via a computerized tutoring program. All four students improved their letter sound knowledge and fluency. Overall, results indicated that a computer‐aided IR intervention is an effective, efficient, and acceptable intervention. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How effective is instructional support for learning with computer simulations?

The study examined the effects of two different instructional interventions as support for scientific discovery learning using computer simulations. In two well-known categories of difficulty, data interpretation and self-regulation, instructional interventions for learning with computer simulations on the topic “ecosystem water” were developed and tested using a sample of 124 eighth graders in science classes. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of instructional support for domain-specific factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge acquisition. Students who received either only instructional support for data interpretation or only for self-regulation achieved the highest learning outcomes. However, a combination of instructional support for data interpretation and self-regulation seemed detrimental for knowledge acquisition. Students who received instructional interventions for both data interpretation and self-regulation also showed the highest values of perceived cognitive load. High cognitive load could be a reason for why a combination of particular instructional interventions does not lead to the expected positive learning outcomes.     

Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: links between preschoolers' theory of mind and semantic development

Two studies addressed whether children consider speakers' knowledge states when establishing initial word-referent links. In Study 1, forty-eight 3- and 4-year-olds were taught two novel words by a speaker who expressed either knowledge or ignorance about the words' referents. Children showed better word learning when the speaker was knowledgeable. In Study 2, forty-eight 3- and 4-year-olds were taught two novel words by a speaker who expressed uncertainty about their referents. Whether the uncertainty truly reflected ignorance, however, differed across conditions. In one condition, the speaker said he made the object himself and thus, he was knowledgeable. In the other condition, the speaker stated that the object was made by a friend and thus, expressed ignorance about it. Four-year-olds learned better in the speaker-made than in the friend-made condition; 3-year-olds, however, showed relatively poor learning in both conditions. These findings suggest that theory-of-mind developments impact word learning.     

Exploring Multidimensional Approaches to the Efficiency of Instructional Conditions

Research on Cognitive Load Theory has shownthat measures of cognitive load can revealimportant information about the cognitiveconsequences of instructional conditions thatis not necessarily reflected by traditionalperformance-based measures. Although, theindividual measures of cognitive load can beconsidered important to determine the power ofdifferent instructional conditions, ameaningful interpretation of a certain level ofcognitive load can only be given in the contextof its associated performance level, and viceversa. This was recognized by Paas and VanMerriënboer (1993) who developed a2-dimensional computational approach to combinemeasures of test performance with measures ofthe associated mental effort in order tocompare the `mental efficiency' ofinstructional conditions. In this approach,high task performance associated with loweffort is termed high instructional efficiency,whereas low task performance with high effortis termed low instructional efficiency.Here we explore the utility of employingmulti-dimensional approaches, in particular two2-dimensional efficiency measures and a new3-dimensional approach, which combines themeasures of learning effort, test effort andtest performance. Each of these approaches withtheir associated insights and analyses may beuseful for instructional researchers, e.g. asdiagnostic instruments to identify differentaspects of efficient or inefficientinstructional conditions and can be implementedin a broad range of learning environments,including electronic environments, possiblyenabling more effective learning-task selection.     

Contact-2: a computer-assisted instructional strategy for promoting conceptual change

Previous research seems to support the assumption that students need instructional guidance to activate and correct their preconceptions. Such an instructional strategy is the CONTACT strategy, characterised by continuous, computer-assisted activation of the conceptions of individual learners. Our previous study showed that the CONTACT strategy was effective in promoting conceptual change in text processing (domain: physical geography) because students (fifth- and sixth-graders, primary education) constructed more correct conceptions. However, students mainly seemed to focus on the central concepts from the training texts, disregarding other information. Therefore, the strategy was adapted to solve this problem of selective attention and to increase its effectiveness. Subjects (74 fifth- and sixth-graders) were assigned to three instructional conditions (original CONTACT condition, revised CONTACT-2 condition and control condition NO ACTIVATION). A mixed between-within-subjects design was used with 2 between-subjects factors (instructional condition and students' familiarity with the central concepts from the 7 texts used). Dependent variables concerned quality of conceptions and learning performance. Students from the CONTACT-2 condition constructed better conceptions and achieved higher learning performance scores than students from the other two conditions. Moreover, the effectiveness of the CONTACT-2 strategy appeared not to depend on the degree of conceptual resemblance between the performance test questions and the central concepts from the texts and on the moment of testing. Additional research should shed some light on the instructional conditions required to teach students how they themselves can initiate and perform learning activities aimed at conceptual change.     

A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Foreign‐Language Vocabulary Learning Enhanced by Phonological Rehearsal: The Role of the Right Cerebellum and Left Fusiform Gyrus

Psychological research suggests that foreign‐language vocabulary acquisition recruits the phonological loop for verbal working memory. To depict the neural underpinnings and shed light on the process of foreign language learning, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging of Japanese participants without previous exposure to the Uzbek language using learning of novel Uzbek words. During encoding, spoken Uzbek words and corresponding visual objects were shown, and subjects either overtly repeated the words (phonological rehearsal) or overtly rehearsed numbers (phonological suppression). Phonological rehearsal improved the encoding performance. A learning‐related decrease in rehearsal‐specific activation was found in the left fusiform gyrus, right inferior temporal gyrus, and right cerebellum. Recollection of the phonologically rehearsed words activated the right cerebellum and left fusiform gyrus more prominently than recollection of the phonologically suppressed words in a performance‐dependent manner. The phonological loop might provide the temporal and fragile registration of the articulatory pattern that is converted into a more durable form in the right cerebellum, which is in turn integrated with the object information in the fusiform gyrus.     

Instructional Efficiency of Performance Analysis Training for Learners at Different Levels of Competency in Using a Web‐Based EPSS

ABSTRACT The measure of performance improvement potential (Gilbert, 1978) in human performance technology uses an exemplary performance as a criterion against which to measure the potential improvement in the performance of a workforce. The measure is calculated based on the performance efficiency which compares expended resources to productivity. The same notion is used to measure the efficiency of instructional conditions, based on learners' mental effort invested in a learning task compared to their performance. This article compares the efficiency of an instructional condition for three groups of students differentiated by their use of an electronic performance support system (EPSS) to conduct a performance analysis project. The results indicated that the instruction was most efficient for those learners who showed greater competency in using the EPSS. Implications for using this technique as a means of formative evaluation of a course are discussed.     

Language in Science Classrooms: An Analysis of Physics Teachers’ Use of and Beliefs About Language

The world over, secondary school science is viewed mainly as a practical subject. This may be one reason why effectiveness of teaching approaches in science education has often been judged on the kinds of practical activity with which teachers and students engage. In addition to practical work, language??often written (as in science texts) or oral (as in the form of teacher and student talk)??is unavoidable in effective teaching and learning of science. Generally however, the role of (instructional) language in quality of learning of school science has remained out of focus in science education research. This has been in spite of findings in empirical research on difficulties science students encounter with words of the instructional language used in science. The findings have suggested that use of (instructional) language in science texts and classrooms can be a major influence on the level of students?? understandings and retention of science concepts. This article reports and discusses findings in an investigation of physics teachers?? approaches to use of and their beliefs about classroom instructional language. Direct classroom observations of, interviews with, as well as content analyses of the participant teachers?? verbatim classroom talk, were used as the methods of data collection. Evidence is presented of participant physics teachers?? lack of explicit awareness of the difficulty, nature, and functional value of different categories of words in the instructional language. In conclusion, the implications of this lack of explicit awareness on the general education (initial and in-service) of school physics teachers are considered.     

Effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary acquisition

The effects of a 20-session intervention targeting morphological word structure on vocabulary knowledge were investigated in four Grade 4 and 5 classes, assigned randomly to treatment and control conditions. Hierarchical regression analyses controlling for initial vocabulary showed significant instructional effects on morphological analysis and vocabulary with words that were taught directly and novel words built on bases that were taught in the context of other derivations, but not for words with untaught bases. Results indicated that the treatment group made better use of pre-test vocabulary knowledge in learning new vocabulary. Results are discussed in light of the growing debate regarding whether to teach many words in a shallow way or to provide deep, rich instruction about fewer words.     

Structuring academic conflicts between majority and minority students: Hindrance or help to integration

The effects of two types of structured academic conflict, controversy and debate, were compared with individual study in a study on desegregation. Seventy-two sixth grade students were assigned to conditions on a stratified random basis controlling for sex, reading ability, and ethnic membership. In all three conditions students studied a controversial issue with materials representing both pro and con views. In the controversy condition each learning group was divided into two pairs representing the pro and con sides. In the debate condition each member of a learning group was assigned a pro or con position to represent in a debate with the other three members. In the individualistic condition subjects were told to learn the material without interacting with other students and each student was given all the pro and con materials. The results indicate that controversy promotes the most cross-ethnic verbal rehearsal and exchange of the assigned material, the most concern that all students master the assigned material, the most active search for more information about the topic being studied, the most reevaluation of one's position and incorporation of opponents' arguments, the most liking for the subject matter and the instructional experience, the highest self-esteem, and the most accepting and supportive relationships among minority and majority students. The debate condition generated higher levels of these dependent variables than did individualistic study.     

Assessing more than you teach: the difficult case of transfer

We conducted two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of individualized remedial reading instruction linked to direct measures of student learning and transfer. The participants were two first grade children at serious risk of reading failure. The instruction targeted decoding of one syllable short vowel words and first emphasized onset-rimes and then phoneme manipulation. Forty words organized into 10 rime patterns were targeted for instruction. Probes consisting of all the instructional words were administered before each instructional session to monitor student progress. We also administered transfer probes to determine if the children could apply their knowledge more broadly. Instruction with onset-rime units yielded excellent maintenance and near transfer (novel words containing instructed rimes) but not far transfer (novel words derived from uninstructed rimes). The instructional change to phoneme manipulation yielded better far transfer for one of the two children. We consider the importance of administering measures that assess more than what is taught to get an accurate portrait of children’s responsiveness to instruction.     

Small-group instruction for students with learning disabilities: observational and incidental learning.

This study evaluated the effectiveness and efficiency of constant time delay (a near errorless learning procedure) in a small-group instructional arrangement. Three fifth-grade students with learning disabilities were taught to recognize multisyllabic basal vocabulary words. A multiple-probe design across behaviors (word sets) was used to evaluate the procedure. Following instruction on each word set, students were assessed on their ability to recognize their own target words, recognize observational words, spell both target and observational words, and define both target and observational words. The results indicated that the constant time-delay procedure was reliably implemented and was effective in establishing criterion-level performance for all students with extremely low error percentages.     

Organizational Chunking and Postquestions in Facilitating Student Ability to Profit from Visualized Instruction

This experiment was designed to examine the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of organizational chunking and batched postquestions within the framework of an information-processing approach to learning and memory. The coding processes utilized by the content organization employed both encoding and retrieval aids to facilitate the acquisition, retention, and retrieval of the information to be learned. Major findings indicate that the chunked treatment resulted in a more efficient learning strategy than the conventional treatment; however, the chunked and conventional treatment, as different encoding strategies, did not produce significant differences in achievement on the performance task. Additionally, students receiving the intervening postquestion strategy took significantly less time in completing the performance measure than did those students who received the non-intervening postquestion treatment.     

Effectiveness of a Self-Scoring Instructional Device in an Introductory Psychology Course

Abstract

No differences in learning or retention were obtained for a computer assisted instruction program (CAI) which incorporated response contingent feedback, prompting, and overt correction procedures when compared to a CAI program which simply typed the correct response following a student response. No differences in learning or retention were obtained for a condition in which an instructional program was administered by a teletypewriter as compared to a condition in which the material was presented by means of programmed texts. Both conditions in which instruction was presented by a CAI communication device took significantly more instructional time than the programmed text condition.     

A motivational perspective on the relation between mental effort and performance: Optimizing learner involvement in instruction

Motivation can be identified as a dimension that determines learning success and causes the high dropout rate among online learners, especially in complex e-learning environments. It is argued that these learning environments represensent a new challenge to cognitive load researchers to investigate the motivational effects of instructional conditions and help instructional designers to predict which instructional configurations will maximize learning and transfer. Consistent with the efficiency perspective introduced by Paas and Van Merriënboer (1993), an alternative motivational perspective of the relation between mental effort and performance is presented. We propose a procedure to compute and visualize the differential effects of instructional conditions on learner motivation, and illustrate this procedure on the basis of an existing data set. Theoretical and practical implications of the motivational perspective are discussed.