Disfluency as a Desirable Difficulty—The Effects of Letter Deletion on Monitoring and Performance

Desirable difficulties initiate learning processes that foster performance. Such a desirable difficulty is generation, e.g., filling in deleted letters in a deleted letter text. Likewise, letter deletion is a manipulation of processing fluency: A deleted letter text is more difficult to process than an intact text. Disfluency theory also supposes that disfluency initiates analytic processes and thus, improves performance. However, performance is often not affected but, rather, monitoring is affected. The aim of this study is to propose a specification of the effects of disfluency as a desirable difficulty: We suppose that mentally filling in deleted letters activates analytic monitoring but not necessarily analytic cognitive processing and improved performance. Moreover, once activated, analytic monitoring should remain for succeeding fluent text. To test our assumptions, half of the students (n = 32) first learned with a disfluent (deleted letter) text and then with a fluent (intact) text. Results show no differences in monitoring between the disfluent and the fluent text. This supports our assumption that disfluency activates analytic monitoring that remains for succeeding fluent text. When the other half of the students (n = 33) first learned with a fluent and then with a disfluent text, differences in monitoring between the disfluent and the fluent text were found. Performance was significantly affected by fluency but in favor of the fluent texts, and hence, disfluency did not activate analytic cognitive processing. Thus, difficulties can foster analytic monitoring that remains for succeeding fluent text, but they do not necessarily improve performance. Further research is required to investigate how analytic monitoring can lead to improved cognitive processing and performance

A Deep Learning Algorithm for Prediction of Age-Related Eye Disease Study Severity Scale for Age-Related Macular Degeneration from Color Fundus Photography

Acknowledgments The authors thank the Age-Related Eye Disease Study participants and the Age-Related Eye Disease Study Research Group for their valuable contribution to this research, and all study participants for contributing to the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Auswirkungen von Sport und Bewegung auf die Entwicklung von Kindergartenkindern

In der frühen und mittleren Kindheit werden grundlegende Fertigkeiten aufgebaut, die sich nachhaltig auf den Verlauf des weiteren Entwicklungsprozesses auswirken. In dieser Studie werden Daten von 2.279 Kindergartenkindern im Alter von 3 bis 6 Jahren ausgewertet, um die Frage zu beantworten, ob Kinder, die regelmäßig Sport treiben, besser entwickelte motorische, kognitive und sozial-emotionale Fertigkeiten aufweisen als Kinder ohne sportliche Aktivitäten. (DIPF/Orig.

The better you feel the better you learn: do warm colours and rounded shapes enhance learning outcome in multimedia learning?

The aim of the present study was to examine whether fostering positive activating affect during multimedia learning enhances learning outcome. University students were randomly assigned to either a multimedia learning environment designed to induce positive activating affect through the use of “warm” colours and rounded shapes () or an affectively neutral environment that used achromatic colours and sharp edges (). Participants learned about the topic of functional neuroanatomy for 20 minutes and had to answer several questions for comprehension and transfer afterwards. Affective states as well as achievement goal orientations were investigated before and after the learning phase using questionnaires. The results show that participants in the affectively positive environment were superior in comprehension as well as transfer when initial affect was strong. Preexperimental positive affect was therefore a predictor of comprehension and a moderator for transfer. Goal orientations did not influence these effects. The findings support the idea that positive affect, induced through the design of the particular multimedia learning environment, can facilitate performance if initial affective states are taken into account

Completion problems can reduce the illusions of understanding in a computer-based learning environment on genetics

Inaccurate judgments of task difficulty and invested mental effort may negatively affect how accurate students monitor their own performance. When students are not able to accurately monitor their own performance, they cannot control their learning effectively (e.g., allocate adequate mental effort and study time). Although students\u27 judgments of task difficulty and invested mental effort are closely related to their study behaviors, it is still an open question how the accuracy of these judgments can be improved in learning from problem solving. The present study focused on the impact of three types of instructional support on the accuracy of students\u27 judgments of difficulty and invested mental effort in relation to their performance while learning genetics in a computer-based environment. Sixty-seven university students with different prior knowledge received either incomplete worked-out examples, completion problems, or conventional problems. Results indicated that lower prior knowledge students performed better with completion problems, while higher prior knowledge students performed better with conventional problems. Incomplete worked-out examples resulted in an overestimation of performance, that is, an illusion of understanding, whereas completion and conventional problems showed neither over- nor underestimation. The findings suggest that completion problems can be used to avoid students\u27 misjudgments of their competencies

Completion problems can reduce the illusions of understanding in a computer-based learning environment on genetics

Inaccurate judgments of task difficulty and invested mental effort may negatively affect how accurate students monitor their own performance. When students are not able to accurately monitor their own performance, they cannot control their learning effectively (e.g., allocate adequate mental effort and study time). Although students\u27 judgments of task difficulty and invested mental effort are closely related to their study behaviors, it is still an open question how the accuracy of these judgments can be improved in learning from problem solving. The present study focused on the impact of three types of instructional support on the accuracy of students\u27 judgments of difficulty and invested mental effort in relation to their performance while learning genetics in a computer-based environment. Sixty-seven university students with different prior knowledge received either incomplete worked-out examples, completion problems, or conventional problems. Results indicated that lower prior knowledge students performed better with completion problems, while higher prior knowledge students performed better with conventional problems. Incomplete worked-out examples resulted in an overestimation of performance, that is, an illusion of understanding, whereas completion and conventional problems showed neither over- nor underestimation. The findings suggest that completion problems can be used to avoid students\u27 misjudgments of their competencies

Doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft: Determinanten der deutschen Politik des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts,

Rieple B, Faist T, Gerdes J. Doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft: Determinanten der deutschen Politik des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts,. In: Schröter YM, Mengelkamp C, Jäger RS, eds. Doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft - ein gesellschaftlicher Diskurs über Mehrstaatigkeit. Landau: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik; 2005: 97-122

Engineering energy markets: the past, the present, and the future

Since the beginning of the energy sector liberalization, the design of energy markets has become a prominent field of research. Markets nowadays facilitate efficient resource allocation in many fields of energy system operation, such as plant dispatch, control reserve provisioning, delimitation of related carbon emissions, grid congestion management, and, more recently, smart grid concepts and local energy trading. Therefore, good market designs play an important role in enabling the energy transition toward a more sustainable energy supply for all. In this chapter, we retrace how market engineering shaped the development of energy markets and how the research focus shifted from national wholesale markets to more decentralized and location-sensitive concepts