Sequence matters! Retrieval practice before generative learning is more effective than the reverse order

Roelle, Julian; Froese, Linda; Krebs, Rebecca; Obergassel, Niklas; Waldeyer, Julia

doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2022.101634

Cited by 16 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The lack of benefit and even the negative impact from the example generation activity without evaluation is consistent with prior work that has found that generating examples can even be harmful to learning when students show low interest in the material (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2019). The poor quality of the examples that were generated by students in this study is also consistent with other prior work Roelle et al, 2022;Zamary et al, 2016). When students generate poor examples and do not attempt to map examples onto their understanding of each phenomenon, any experiences of fluency and familiarity that may be prompted by the retrieval of those examples will be illusory (Jaeger & Wiley, 2015;Wiley et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

The effects of generating examples on comprehension and metacomprehension.

Guerrero,

Griffin,

Wiley

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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Teachers and students often report using examples to support learning. Research has shown benefits of viewing provided examples and generating examples during declarative concept learning; however, there is less work showing clear benefits when learners generate their own examples on comprehension measures while students are attempting to learn from expository science texts. The present study tested whether generating examples would be useful for improving comprehension and comprehension monitoring in the context of an undergraduate science course. In a pre-post design, students completed an initial reading activity, followed by taking practice tests on each topic. Some students were assigned to complete an additional example generation activity after taking the practice tests. Some students also evaluated the quality of generated examples and received explanatory feedback. While there was an overall improvement in comprehension for all students, those who generated examples without the opportunity to evaluate the quality had the smallest overall learning gains. Students who evaluated the quality of examples showed the greatest learning gains on application-based test questions. And, although overall overconfidence decreased, there were no differences between conditions. These results suggest that example generation may not always be as helpful for improving learning as many students and teachers assume. Public Significance StatementExamples are often used in classrooms by students and teachers to support learning from text. This study, conducted in an entry-level psychology course at a minority-serving institution, indicated that generating examples as a study activity was not beneficial for student learning and even harmed learning when the activity was conducted without guidance.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

The effects of generating examples on comprehension and metacomprehension.

Guerrero,

Griffin,

Wiley

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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“…Mental activities such as planning, monitoring, or relating sources of information seem to be generic skills that do not impose a high mental load when the content or information being processed is already known (Geary, 2008;Tricot and Sweller, 2014). Nevertheless, learning new information or solving problems, even mentally undemanding, requires basic strategies, and some social regulation that includes verbal explanations, reviews to understand, and visual and verbal elaborations to reduce working memory load (Nückles et al, 2020;Roelle et al, 2022). These mental operations become more necessary when the information is more complex, and there is little knowledge about the task (Fiorella and Mayer, 2015;Zambrano et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the Deep Learning Strategies Questionnaire with Ecuadorian students

Yaguarema

R.²,

Salavarría³

2022

Front. Educ.

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Measurement of self-regulated learning through self-report questionnaires can help improve educational efforts. The Deep Learning Strategies Questionnaire has been recently validated, which consists of 30 items and four scales: basic self-regulated learning strategies, visual elaboration and summary strategies, deep information processing strategies, and self-regulated social learning strategies. We examined the characteristics of the questionnaire with 694 Ecuadorian students. The exploratory factor analysis resulted in four factors, like the original model. However, the factors identified as basic and social learning strategies included items of visual elaboration and summary and deep processing strategies. Further group comparisons showed that participants with high school finished used fewer visual and verbal elaboration strategies than those with higher education levels and that males use more deep information processing strategies than females. We discuss the difficulty of separating self-regulated learning strategies and conclude with suggestions for future research and recommendations for educational practice.

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“…Notably, retrieval practice accompanied by feedback has been shown to benefit lower-ability students during learning (Agarwal et al, 2017). Thus, retrieval practice may be judiciously introduced prior to learning-by-teaching (e.g., Roelle et al, 2022) in leveling the playing field for these weaker students, so that no one is left behind in the learning process. Indeed, examining how retrieval practice can be astutely integrated with learning-by-teaching offers a promising prospect for future work.…”

Section: Educational Implications and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

To ask better questions, teach: Learning-by-teaching enhances research question generation more than retrieval practice and concept-mapping.

Wong¹,

Lim²,

Lim³

2023

Journal of Educational Psychology

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Asking good questions is vital for scientific learning and discovery, but improving this complex skill is a formidable challenge. Here, we show in two experiments (N = 152) that teaching others-learningby-teaching-enhances one's ability to generate higher-order research questions that create new knowledge, relative to two other well-established generative learning techniques: retrieval practice and concept-mapping. Learners who taught scientific expository texts across natural and social sciences topics by delivering video-recorded lectures outperformed their peers who practiced retrieval or constructed concept maps when tested on their ability to generate create-level research questions based on the texts (Experiment 1). This advantage held reliably even on a delayed test 48 hr later, and when all learners similarly received and responded to poststudy questions on the material (Experiment 2). Moreover, across both immediate and delayed tests, learning-by-teaching produced a recall benefit that rivaled that of the potent technique of retrieval practice. In contrast, despite recalling more than twice the study content that the concept-mapping group did, learners who practiced retrieval were unable to generate more create-level research questions based on that content. Three supplemental experiments (N = 168) further showed that retrieval practice consistently did not improve higher-order question generation over restudying, despite yielding superior long-term retention. Altogether, these findings reveal that simply possessing a wealth of factual knowledge is insufficient for generating higher-order research questions that create new knowledge. Rather, teaching others is a powerful strategy for producing deep and durable learning that enables research question generation. To ask better questions, teach. Educational Impact and Implications StatementScientific discovery often begins with the art of asking good questions. Here, we show that teaching others enhances students' ability to generate higher-order research questions that create new knowledge. Across immediate and delayed tests, students who taught scientific material by delivering a videorecorded lecture successfully generated more create-level research questions based on the material, as compared to their peers who used well-established learning methods such as retrieval practice and concept-mapping. While we teach, we learn to ask better research questions.

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Sequence matters! Retrieval practice before generative learning is more effective than the reverse order

Cited by 16 publications

References 60 publications

The effects of generating examples on comprehension and metacomprehension.

The effects of generating examples on comprehension and metacomprehension.

Analysis of the Deep Learning Strategies Questionnaire with Ecuadorian students

To ask better questions, teach: Learning-by-teaching enhances research question generation more than retrieval practice and concept-mapping.

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