Learning programming via worked-examples: Relation of learning styles to cognitive load

By S. Rahman, John Benedict du Boulay. 2014

85 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper describes an experiment that compared learners with contrasting learning styles, Active vs. Reflective, using three different strategies for learning programming via worked-examples: Paired-method, Structure-emphasising, and Completion. The quality of the learners' acquired cognitive schemata was assessed in terms of their post-test performance. The experiment investigated variations in learners' cognitive load, taking both the learning strategies and the learners' learning styles into account. Overall, the results of the experiment were inconsistent. In comparing the effects of the strategies during the learning phase, the study found significant differences in cognitive load. Unexpectedly, no differences were then detected either in cognitive load or in performance during the post-test (post-test). In comparing the effects of the learning styles during the learning phase and the transfer phase, medium effect sizes suggested that learning style may have had an effect on cognitive load. However, no significant difference was observed in performance during the post-test.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science & Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Comparing Code Explanations Created by Students and Large Language Models (2023, background): “Learning by example is an effective pedagogical technique, often employed in programming education [2, 48].”