Learner Experience and Efficiency of Instructional Guidance

By Slava Kalyuga, Paul Chandler, John Sweller. 2001

208 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Interactions between levels of learner knowledge in a domain and levels of instructional guidance were studied in this investigation. Inexperienced mechanical trade apprentices were presented with one of two alternative instructional designs: a series of worked examples or a less guided exploratory-based environment allowing participants to explore the same material on their own. Two levels of task difficulty were used: (a) simple tasks with a very limited problem space with a small number of possible options to explore; and (b) complex tasks with a relatively larger problem space with numerous options to explore. Following instruction subjective mental load ratings and test performance measures were collected. There were only minimal differences between the instructional procedures on the simple tasks. For complex tasks, inexperienced trainees clearly benefited most from the worked examples procedure. This group performed significantly better with lower ratings of mental load than similar trainees who studied the exploratory procedure. When participants became more experienced in the domain, after two specifically designed training sessions, the advantage of a worked examples procedure disappeared. Thus, as the level of experience was raised, the performance of the exploratory group improved more than performance of the worked examples group. Suggestions are made for computer-based instructional procedures that take learner knowledge into account by employing the strategic use of both worked examples and exploratory-based instruction.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/80c32cf0b1f376401f1d1f8f44fe66e3be51c251

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

A motivational perspective on the relation between mental effort and performance: Optimizing learner involvement in instruction (2005, unknown): “efficiency measure (e.g., Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, & Sweller, 2001; Paas & van”
The Expertise Reversal Effect (2003, background): “Lastly, Kalyuga, Chandler, and Sweller (2001) compared a series of worked examples with an explor-atory-based learning environment that allowed participants to explore the same material on their own.”
Expertise Reversal Effect and Its Implications for Learner-Tailored Instruction (2007, background): “Kalyuga et al. (2001b) Worked examples vs. problem-solving Experiment 1 Writing programs for relay circuits 0.90 (24) 0.23 (24) 0.67 Experiment 2 Writing switching equations for circuits � 0.26 (24) �0.75 (24) 0.49 Kalyuga et al. (2001a) ”
Instructional Design Consequences of an Analogy between Evolution by Natural Selection and Human Cognitive Architecture (2004, background): “There are now many experiments demonstrating the effect (see Kalyuga, Chandler and Sweller 1998; Yeung, Jin and Sweller 1998; Kalyuga, Chandler and Sweller 2000; Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen and Sweller 2001; Kalyuga, Chandler and Sweller 2001; Tuovinen and Sweller 1999; McNamara, Kintsch, E., Song”
Measuring Knowledge to Optimize Cognitive Load Factors During Instruction. (2004, background): “Kalyuga, Chandler, and Sweller (1998, 2000, 2001), Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, and Sweller (2001), and Tuovinen and Sweller (1999) found that procedures and techniques designed to reduce working memory overload, such as integrating textual explanations into diagrams to minimize split attention,…”
Expertise reversal effect and its instructional implications: introduction to the special issue (2010, background): “However, further studies with more advanced learners indicated that with the development of learner knowledge in a domain, such procedures and techniques often became unnecessary or even detrimental ( Kalyuga et al. 1998, 2000, 2001; Renkl 1997; Renkl and Atkinson 2003; Renkl et al. 2002).”
Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning. IES Practice Guide. NCER 2007-2004. (2007, background): “51 See Roediger and Karpicke (2006a) for a recent review and synthesis of both laboratory and classroom research that empirically examines the testing effect.”