Towards an evidence-informed differentiated learning consolidation process to support classroom instruction

Despite many years of teaching experience, the differentiation and consolidation of classroom learning presented challenges for the researcher. In response, a Differentiated Learning Consolidation Process (DLCP) was developed through informal classroom-based action research over several years. Using low cost and accessible resources, it developed into a manageable supplementary intervention to support individual student needs and the retention of classroom instruction. Increasing interest from colleagues led the researcher to provide professional development on the instructional design and implementation of the DLCP. Through this experience, it became apparent that the DLCP theoretical assumptions were largely unknown. The current study was pursued to identify the theoretical components of the DLCP and determine if and how they could be aligned with evidence informed research. A simplified realist review was employed as it provided the opportunity to triangulate theory, the researcher’s contextual experience, and the investigation of the DLCP instructional design. The study determined that the DLCP was situated within the field of cognitive psychology, aligning with cognitive load theory and the new theory of disuse. Within the context of the DLCP, spaced practice, retrieval practice, interleaved practice and strategies associated with metacognitive development were investigated to identify maintenance or modification of the instructional design. The findings of this analysis may support teachers to differentiate and consolidate classroom instruction. Additionally, the DLCP may hold potential as an instrument for classroom-based research on variables related to its theoretical constructs

Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum

The field of specialization known as the science of learning is not, in fact, one field. Science of learning is a term that serves as an umbrella for many lines of research, theory, and application. A term with an even wider reach is Learning Sciences (Sawyer, 2006). The present book represents a sliver, albeit a substantial one, of the scholarship on the science of learning and its application in educational settings (Science of Instruction, Mayer 2011). Although much, but not all, of what is presented in this book is focused on learning in college and university settings, teachers of all academic levels may find the recommendations made by chapter authors of service. The overarching theme of this book is on the interplay between the science of learning, the science of instruction, and the science of assessment (Mayer, 2011). The science of learning is a systematic and empirical approach to understanding how people learn. More formally, Mayer (2011) defined the science of learning as the “scientific study of how people learn” (p. 3). The science of instruction (Mayer 2011), informed in part by the science of learning, is also on display throughout the book. Mayer defined the science of instruction as the “scientific study of how to help people learn” (p. 3). Finally, the assessment of student learning (e.g., learning, remembering, transferring knowledge) during and after instruction helps us determine the effectiveness of our instructional methods. Mayer defined the science of assessment as the “scientific study of how to determine what people know” (p.3). Most of the research and applications presented in this book are completed within a science of learning framework. Researchers first conducted research to understand how people learn in certain controlled contexts (i.e., in the laboratory) and then they, or others, began to consider how these understandings could be applied in educational settings. Work on the cognitive load theory of learning, which is discussed in depth in several chapters of this book (e.g., Chew; Lee and Kalyuga; Mayer; Renkl), provides an excellent example that documents how science of learning has led to valuable work on the science of instruction. Most of the work described in this book is based on theory and research in cognitive psychology. We might have selected other topics (and, thus, other authors) that have their research base in behavior analysis, computational modeling and computer science, neuroscience, etc. We made the selections we did because the work of our authors ties together nicely and seemed to us to have direct applicability in academic settings

Comparing instructional techniques on memory retention, retrieval, application and self-efficacy of grading criteria used for student self-assessment.

Purpose/Objectives: Study examined the effects of active engagement (ENG) and spaced retrieval practice (SRP) on the self-assessment (SA) competencies among D1 dental students. Methods: D1 dental students (N = 120) were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions (n=30) in this experimental 2X2 research study: no ENG/ no SRP (control); no ENG/ SRP; ENG/no SRP; ENG/ SRP. Outcomes included content mastery (30 item multiple-choice exam) and application knowledge (simulated dentoform assessment) of the course grading rubric for SA. Results: Results indicated a statistically significant main effect for ENG and SRP on both outcome variables. Specifically, ENG had a larger effect than SRP on both outcomes. A significant interaction effect was identified for ENG and SRP on content mastery. Students with ENG scored significantly higher (2.63 points) in content mastery with SRP than without SRP with a moderate effect size (d = 0.48). Students with no ENG scored significantly higher (5.57 points) in content mastery with SRP than without SRP with a large effect size (d = 1.39). Students with SRP scored significantly higher (3.93 points) in content mastery with ENG than without ENG with a moderate effect size (d = 0.63). Students with no SRP scored significantly higher (6.87 points) in content mastery with ENG than without ENG with a large effect size (d = 2.10). Conclusions: Findings shed light on the potential of active ENG and SRP on D1 dental students’ learning outcomes. Subsequent research is suggested on a wider range of dental students and learner topics

Putting the Distributed Practice Effect into Context

Spaced repetition leads to superior final memory relative to massed repetition, a phenomenon known as the distributed practice effect. However, when items are repeated in variable study contexts across learning opportunities (relative to a consistent study context), the advantage of distributed practice over massed practice is typically reduced. In this dissertation, the effect of study context on the distributed practice effect was investigated from a neural perspective (Study 1) and from a developmental perspective (Study 2). In Study 1, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as participants learned stimuli repeated after massed or distributed lags on either a consistent or variable background. After a fixed retention interval, stimuli were presented for a third time and participants recognition memory was tested. Behavioural evidence of a Lag x Study Context interaction was mixed. The ERP data revealed a neural distinction between massed and distributed repetitions during the study phase in terms of the late positivity component (LPC); however, the LPC was not further defined by the study context manipulation. During the test phase, distributed, variably studied repetitions engendered the greatest neural familiarity response compared to all other repetition conditions. In Study 2, younger and older participants learned stimuli repeated after varying lags on either a consistent or variable background. The background scenes were either shared among all to-be-learned items (Experiment 2A) or unique to each to-be-learned item (Experiment 2B). After the study phase, participants free recall memory was tested. Although older adults had greater difficulty identifying whether a repeated items study context had changed throughout the study phase, as hypothesized, they still exhibited similar final recall performance to younger adults during the test phase. Comparing data from the two experiments, the results also revealed that variations to study context might actually enhance the distributed practice effect in certain learning situations. This enhancement effect, which warrants further investigation, might depend on the type of material being learned and/or the variety of contextual information available during study

Quasi-Experimental Study of the Impact Spaced Practice and Retrieval Have on Mathematical Fact Fluency in Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Students

The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group study was to determine if there is a difference in mathematical fact fluency among third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students with varying practice methods and spacing intervals while controlling for pre-test scores. The study filled the literature gap by examining the impact of each variable and their combined additive effect in a third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade student population. Given the importance of math fact fluency on overall math performance, finding the most effective means for building retention is imperative. The sample included 196 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students. Data collection was completed prior to the start of the intervention using the fluency instrument from the Mathematics Fluency and Calculation Tests. Following data collection, a two-way analysis of covariance was conducted to measure the differences among the retrieval strategies and the various spacing intervals. The Bonferroni post hoc analysis was used to look for sample group variances. Following data analysis, the main effects of treatment and time demonstrated statistical significance; therefore, null hypotheses one and two were rejected. The researcher was unable to reject the third null hypothesis. The study demonstrated that treatment and time can positively influence students\u27 mathematical fact fluency. It is recommended that future researchers consider alternate levels of the variables, separate the mathematical operations to take a closer look at each independently, study the correlation between fluency and anxiety, and coordinate a longitudinal study looking at how fluency affects later performance

Integrating Cognitive Science with Innovative Teaching in STEM Disciplines

This volume collects the ideas and insights discussed at a novel conference, the Integrating Cognitive Science with Innovative Teaching in STEM Disciplines Conference, which was held September 27-28, 2012 at Washington University in St. Louis. With funding from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the conference was hosted by Washington University’s Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE), a center established in 2011. Available for download as a PDF. Titles of individual chapters can be found at http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/circle_book/.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/books/1009/thumbnail.jp

Human exploration of complex knowledge spaces

Driven by need or curiosity, as humans we constantly act as information seekers. Whenever we work, study, play, we naturally look for information in spaces where pieces of our knowledge and culture are linked through semantic and logic relations. Nowadays, far from being just an abstraction, these information spaces are complex structures widespread and easily accessible via techno-systems: from the whole World Wide Web to the paramount example of Wikipedia. They are all information networks. How we move on these networks and how our learning experience could be made more efficient while exploring them are the key questions investigated in the present thesis. To this end concepts, tools and models from graph theory and complex systems analysis are borrowed to combine empirical observations of real behaviours of users in knowledge spaces with some theoretical findings of cognitive science research. It is investigated how the knowledge space structure can affect its own exploration in learning-type tasks, and how users do typically explore the information networks, when looking for information or following some learning paths. The research approach followed is exploratory and moves along three main lines of research. Enlarging a previous work in algorithmic education, the first contribution focuses on the topological properties of the information network and how they affect the \emph{efficiency} of a simulated learning exploration. To this end a general class of algorithms is introduced that, standing on well-established findings on educational scheduling, captures some of the behaviours of an individual moving in a knowledge space while learning. In exploring this space, learners move along connections, periodically revisiting some concepts, and sometimes jumping on very distant ones. To investigate the effect of networked information structures on the dynamics, both synthetic and real-world graphs are considered, such as subsections of Wikipedia and word-association graphs. The existence is revealed of optimal topological structures for the defined learning dynamics. They feature small-world and scale-free properties with a balance between the number of hubs and of the least connected items. Surprisingly the real-world networks analysed turn out to be close to optimality. To uncover the role of semantic content of the bit of information to be learned in a information-seeking tasks, empirical data on user traffic logs in the Wikipedia system are then considered. From these, and by means of first-order Markov chain models, some users paths over the encyclopaedia can be simulated and treated as proxies for the real paths. They are then analysed in an abstract semantic level, by mapping the individual pages into points of a semantic reduced space. Recurrent patterns along the walks emerge, even more evident when contrasted with paths originated in information-seeking goal oriented games, thus providing some hints about the unconstrained navigation of users while seeking for information. Still, different systems need to be considered to evaluate longer and more constrained and structured learning dynamics. This is the focus of the third line of investigation, in which learning paths are extracted from advances scientific textbooks and treated as they were walks suggested by their authors throughout an underlying knowledge space. Strategies to extract the paths from the textbooks are proposed, and some preliminary results are discussed on their statistical properties. Moreover, by taking advantages of the Wikipedia information network, the Kauffman theory of adjacent possible is formalized in a learning context, thus introducing the adjacent learnable to refer to the part of the knowledge space explorable by the reader as she learns new concepts by following the suggested learning path. Along this perspective, the paths are analysed as particular realizations of the knowledge space explorations, thus allowing to quantitatively contrast different approaches to education

Enhancing memory and self-regulated learning with scaffolded retrieval

Retrieving information enhances subsequent recall of that information. This testing effect has been demonstrated with a wide range of learning materials in both the laboratory and the classroom. But the benefits of testing are limited in two important ways, particularly with regard to the implementation of self-testing in the classroom: 1) self-testing is ineffective if learning conditions are especially difficult and 2) learners tend to make poor decisions when self-regulating retrieval practice. The experiments reported in this dissertation evaluate scaffolded retrieval techniques that were designed to enhance learning under very difficult learning conditions, and, consequently, expected to foster more judicious decision making when allowing learners to self-regulate their termination of retrieval practice. In our first set of experiments, we evaluate the benefits of diminishing-cues retrieval practice (DCRP), a scaffolded retrieval technique that places increasingly greater retrieval demands on learners as practice progresses. Relative to standard retrieval practice, DCRP benefits memory in very difficult learning conditions; furthermore, DCRP is just as effective as standard retrieval practice under conditions that also yield strong testing effects. In the second set of experiments, we evaluate the benefits of adaptive-cues retrieval practice, a scaffolded technique that adapts to an individual’s moment-to-moment ability such that retrieval demands are higher for better-learned items. Relative to DCRP, which offers rigidly structured scaffolding, the additional flexibility of ACRP extends the benefits of testing to an even greater degree. Finally, in our third set of experiments, we allowed learners to decide when to end practice when engaged in standard retrieval practice versus DCRP or ACRP. Despite the enhanced practice performance offered by DCRP and ACRP, learners did not practice items for longer in these conditions relative to standard retrieval practice

Predicting Success In Preparing For High-Stakes Admissions Tests: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

Research on preparing for standardized college admissions tests such as the SAT has largely been limited to studies exploring the relative effect size of test preparation. In several analyses and meta-analyses, investigators have demonstrated a positive effect of test preparation (e.g., Briggs, 2005; Kulik, Bangert-Drowns & Kulik, 1984; Lilly & Montgomery, 2011; Powers & Rock, 1999). Moving beyond the fundamental question of whether SAT prep influences test scores, researchers have only recently begun to explore the individual factors that inform successful test preparation. In their regression analysis of the salient factors of successful SAT preparation, Appelrouth, Moore, & Zabrucky (2014) found significant effects of homework completion, instructional hours, practice and official testing, distribution of study, and timing of test preparation. The current study builds upon that research in constructing a functional model of the factors involved in successful SAT preparation. It was hypothesized that there would be direct and indirect relationships between the factors of test preparation, and that some of these relationships would be moderated by student characteristics such as gender and socioeconomic status. Archival data from 1,933 students, provided by a private tutoring company, were analyzed. Significant direct relations were reported between tutoring start time and the following variables: session distribution, individual tutoring hours, group tutoring hours, homework completion, number of official tests, number of practice tests and total SAT increase. Starting tutoring earlier junior year yielded a number of positive direct and indirect effects. Session distribution, individual and group tutoring hours, and official SAT and practice SAT tests all mediated the relationship between start time and SAT score increase. Though gender had no significant moderating effects, both school type and socioeconomic status moderated the relationship between start time and individual tutoring hours. School type also moderated the relationship between homework completion and score increase. The results of this analysis have implications for the thousands of high schools and educational entities that offer SAT coaching programs. By encouraging earlier program start times, adequate instructional hours, distribution of sessions and practice effects, administrators can create more effective SAT preparation programs to serve their college-bound students