IDT 873 Abstracts: Rules and Principles Jennifer Maddrell Ross, S. M., & Rakow, E. A. (1981). Learner Control versus Program Control as Adaptive Strategies for Selection of Instructional Support on Math Rules. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73(5), 745-53. Research Purpose and focus. Ross and Rakow (1981) sought to extend previous research on the effect of adaptive instructional strategies on math rule attainment. They predicted that an adaptive design strategy which varied the number of practice examples based on the student’s pretest score would improve rule attainment over a nonadaptive strategy. Methodology. 124 undergraduate students volunteered to participate in the study. The students were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups, including 1) program control (the number of examples were adapted to pretest scores), 2) learner control (the number of examples were selected by subjects), 3) nonadaptive (a constant five examples per rule were presented to learners), and 4) lecture (the nonadaptive program was presented through lecture format) groups. The learning program consisted of presentation of five introductory math rules, including inequalities, factorials, exponents, order of operations, and summation. Presentation for each rule included the rule definition, as well as complete and incomplete examples. Other than the lecture group, the instruction for all of the groups was done through self-study booklets in a lab session with three or less subjects who worked with a single proctor to complete a separate booklet for each rule. Those in the lecture group received the identical content as the nonadaptive self-study group within a presentation given by an instructor. Achievement assessment included a pretest taken a few weeks prior to the instructional phase, a posttest taken after completion of each rule booklet, and a delayed posttest given a few weeks after the instruction. The achievement tests consisted of open ended test questions. The study also incorporated an attitude survey which was taken after the completion of the last rule booklet. Results and conclusions. The results indicated statistically significant differences in posttest achievement based on the treatment strategy. The immediate posttest results indicated the mean score of the program control group was higher than all other treatments while both the lecture and the nonadaptive groups performed better than the learner control group. In the delayed posttest, the differences were the same, but more pronounced. However, the noted results for the learner control group varied based on entrance ability. While low entrance ability students performed well under program control and poorly under learner control, high entrance ability students performed well under both. Further, there was no significant difference among treatment groups on the attitude survey scores. Heuristics The results of this study suggest value in adapting instructional presentation based on learner need. Based on the findings of this study, increasing the presentation of examples for those with low entrance ability and decreasing presentation for those with high entrance ability may improve rule attainment. Page | 1 Submitted 20081015 IDT 873 Abstracts: Rules and Principles Jennifer Maddrell Critique The results of this study support prior research findings which suggest value in modifying the amount of instructional support based on individual need. Further, this study suggests entrance ability assessment may be an effective means of gauging the amount of needed instructional support. In addition, this study suggests that for low entrance ability learners, learner control in gauging an optimal presentation may not be an effective strategy. However, it is important to note that learners in the learner control treatment were required to ask the proctor for additional examples which may have made the learners uncomfortable and less likely to ask for additional examples. Wiley, J., & Voss, J. (1999). Constructing arguments from multiple sources: Tasks that promote understanding and not just memory for text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(2), 301-311. Research Purpose and focus. Wiley and Voss (1999) evaluated the effect of student generated arguments on learning historical subject matter. Two separate experiments were conducted. The purpose and methods were similar, namely to evaluate whether argument writing tasks promoted a deeper understanding of the to-be-learned material than other narrative, summary, or explanation writing tasks. Methodology. 24 undergraduate students participated in the second study. The students were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups, including 1) a narrative group, 2) a summary group, 3) an explanation group, and 4) an argument group. All groups received the same information about Ireland from 1800 to 1850, either in a paper based or computer based newspaper article. After reading the material, students were asked to assume the role of historian and, based on their assigned treatment, develop either a written narrative, summary, explanation, or argument about what produced the significant changes in Ireland’s population between 1846 and 1850. Learners were given approximately 30 minutes to read the material and complete their reflective writing task. After the writing task, participants were assessed based on three learning measures including 1) a sentence verification task (10 true / false questions), 2) an inference verification task (determining if statements were true on the basis of the presented information) and 3) a principle identification task in which students indicated how similar the causes of the Irish Potato Famine were to other historical situations. In addition, the sentences in each student’s writing task were classified based on whether the sentences were a) borrowed from the original source, b) transformed, or c) added information. Results and conclusions. The results indicate little difference between whether students read the newspaper article from the computer or paper. Further, there were no significant differences across treatment groups in the recognition of sentences. However, those in the argument writing treatment demonstrated better identification of inferences and generated essay sentences with more transformed and causal information. In contrast, the other writing tasks resulted in essays with more borrowed and added sentences and less causal information. Heuristics The results of these experiments suggest the nature of the reflective writing task impacts the learner’s attainment of the to-be-learned material. Based on the conclusions of the researchers, writing tasks which require the learners to form and support arguments about causes Page | 2 Submitted 20081015 IDT 873 Abstracts: Rules and Principles Jennifer Maddrell of events may lead to better recognition of the underlying principles in the subject matter than can be achieved in writing tasks that focus on just narrative summaries or explanations. Critique In terms of the teaching of rules and principles, this study offers support for what Wiley and Voss term knowledge-transforming versus knowledge-telling tasks. Wiley and Voss argue that the findings of their study suggest argument writing is a knowledge-transforming task which requires learners to go beyond mere recall of principles to the construction and subsequent defense of arguments to explain the root causes of events. They suggest that through argument writing tasks the subject matter is learned at a deeper level given that learners must retrieve and relate more information in order to justify their positions. While this study was small in scope and scale, it offers an intriguing stepping stone for future research on the effects of various types of reflective writing tasks on rule or principle attainment. Page | 3 Submitted 20081015
Designed to Inspire
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