Self-explanation in the domain of statistics: an expertise reversal effect

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of four instructional methods on cognitive load, propositional knowledge, and conceptual understanding of statistics, for low prior knowledge students and for high prior knowledge students. The instructional methods were (1) a reading-only control condition, (2) answering open-ended questions, (3) answering open-ended questions and formulating arguments, and (4) studying worked-out examples of the type of arguments students in the third group had to formulate themselves. The results indicate that high prior knowledge students develop more propositional knowledge of statistics than low prior knowledge students. With regard to conceptual understanding, the results indicate an expertise reversal effect: low prior knowledge students learn most from studying worked-out examples, whereas high prior knowledge students profit most from formulating arguments. Thus, novice students should be guided into the subject matter by means of worked-out examples. As soon as students have developed more knowledge of the subject matter, they should be provided with learning tasks that stimulate students to solve problems by formulating arguments.

Working Memory Capacity and Self‐Explanation Strategy Use Provide Additive Problem‐Solving Benefits

“…The benefits of backward‐fading, however, may diminish as students develop more domain expertise because of the redundancy of viewing completed and partially completed problems once the steps needed to solve a particular type of problem are understood (Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, & Sweller, ). Evidence of the expertise reversal effect suggests that for statistical problem‐solving in particular (which is the focus of the present study), studying example problems is more helpful for students with low prior knowledge than for students with high prior knowledge and strategies such as self‐explanation and formulating arguments may be more beneficial for those with high prior knowledge (Leppink, Broers, Imbos, van der Vleuten, & Berger, ).…”

The Effect of Guidance in Problem-Based Learning of Statistics

“…This method of first having students answer open-ended questions that can then help them to evaluate more complex hypotheses is also called the method of propositional manipulation (Broers, 2002(Broers, , 2009. Although this method was originally developed for and examined within the context of individual learning (Broers, 2002;Leppink et al, 2011Leppink et al, , 2012a, it has also been applied in pair learning (Leppink et al, 2012b) and lecture learning (Leppink, 2012) contexts.…”

“…This finding, also known as the expertise reversal effect, was also demonstrated in the domain of statistics (Leppink, 2011(Leppink, , 2012. Two randomized experiments (Leppink, Broers, Imbos, Van der Vleuten, & Berger, 2012a, 2012b demonstrated that students who have limited prior knowledge learn more from the study of fully or partially worked examples than from autonomous performance of learning tasks. Furthermore, one of the experiments (Leppink et al, 2012a) indicated that novice students who in their study restrict themselves to merely reading a study text perform better rather than worse than students who study the same text with guiding questions.…”

“…Two randomized experiments (Leppink, Broers, Imbos, Van der Vleuten, & Berger, 2012a, 2012b demonstrated that students who have limited prior knowledge learn more from the study of fully or partially worked examples than from autonomous performance of learning tasks. Furthermore, one of the experiments (Leppink et al, 2012a) indicated that novice students who in their study restrict themselves to merely reading a study text perform better rather than worse than students who study the same text with guiding questions. In line with the latter, a recent think-aloud study (Leppink, Broers, Imbos, Van der Vleuten, & Berger, 2011) indicates that providing students Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 09:41 20 November 2014 with guiding questions in learning tasks only contributes to learning among more knowledgeable students.…”

“…In line with the latter, a recent think-aloud study (Leppink, Broers, Imbos, Van der Vleuten, & Berger, 2011) indicates that providing students Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 09:41 20 November 2014 with guiding questions in learning tasks only contributes to learning among more knowledgeable students. These three studies, however, focus on individual learning (Leppink et al, , 2012a or on learning in pairs of students (Leppink et al, 2012b).…”