Recent studies have tested the addition of worked examples to tutored problem solving, a more effective instructional approach than the untutored problem solving used in prior worked example research. These studies involved Cognitive Tutors, software designed to support problem solving while minimizing extraneous cognitive load by providing prompts for problem sub-goals, step-based immediate feedback, and context-sensitive hints. Results across eight studies in three different domains indicate that adding examples to Cognitive Tutors is beneficial, particularly for decreasing the instructional time needed and perhaps also for achieving more robust learning outcomes. These studies bolster the practical importance of examples in learning, but are also of theoretical interest. By using a stronger control condition than previous studies, these studies provide a basis for refining Cognitive Load Theory explanations of the benefits of examples. Perhaps, in addition to other reasons, examples may help simply because they more quickly provide novices with information needed to induce generalized knowledge.
Keywords Worked examples . Cognitive tutors . Cognitive load theoryIn recent years, a considerable number of studies have explored the conditions under which examples aid in acquiring cognitive skills (for a review, see Atkinson et al. 2000;Renkl 2005Renkl , 2010. Among other things, researchers have discovered (1) that examples are more effective than problems in the early stages of skill acquisition, (2) that problems are more effective in later stages (e.g., Kalyuga et al. 2003), (3) that interleaving examples and problems (i.e., example-problem pairs) is more effective than presenting examples and problems in blocks (Trafton and Reiser 1993), (4) that a gradual step-by-step fading of Educ Psychol Rev