Learning from Worked-Out Examples: The Effects of Example Variability and Elicited Self-Explanations

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Learning Sciences

Background:

• Learning from worked-out examples is a common instructional method.
• The effectiveness of worked-out examples can be influenced by factors like example variability and self-explanation strategies.
• Understanding how these factors impact the acquisition of transferable knowledge is crucial for optimizing learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of example variability and elicited self-explanations on transferable knowledge acquisition.
• To examine if prior topic knowledge moderates the effects of these learning strategies.
• To assess the role of self-explanation quality in learning from worked-out examples.

Main Methods:

• A 2x2 factorial design was employed with 56 bank apprentices learning compound and real interest calculations.
• Factors included uniform versus multiple examples and spontaneous versus elicited self-explanations.
• Learning outcomes were measured using a post-test with near- and far-transfer problems.

Main Results:

• Eliciting self-explanations supported the acquisition of transferable knowledge.
• Learners with low prior topic knowledge particularly benefited from elicited self-explanations for near-transfer tasks.
• The hypothesis that multiple examples enhance transfer performance, even with elicited self-explanations, was not supported.

Conclusions:

• The quality of self-explanations plays a causal role in knowledge acquisition when learning from worked-out examples.
• Eliciting self-explanations is a beneficial strategy for promoting transferable knowledge, especially for novices.
• Instructional design should focus on fostering effective self-explanations rather than solely on increasing example variability.