Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: We present evidence from three quasi-experimental studies on productive failure.In Experiment 1, students experienced either direct instruction (DI) or productive failure (PF), wherein they were first asked to generate a quantitative index for variance before receiving direct instruction on the concept.Experiment 2 examined if it was necessary for students to generate solutions or can these solutions be simply given to the students to study and evaluate.Experiment 3 examined if it was necessary for students to generate solutions before receiving the critical features of the targeted concept, or would simply telling the critical features without any such generation work just as well.In Experiment 1, PF students performed on par with DI students on procedural fluency, and significantly outperformed them on data analysis and conceptual insight items.In Experiment 2, only the effects on conceptual insight and near transfer were significant.In Experiment 3, only the effect on conceptual insight remained significant.Overall, these results challenge the claim that that direct instruction alone is the most effective approach for teaching novel concepts to learners.
Authors: Manu Kapur, Katerine Bielaczyc
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2578309738