Eberly Center

“Doing” the right thing for the right learning: Prediction-Observation-Explanation cycles improve students’ generalization of scientific principles.

Carvalho, P., Manke, K. & K. Koedinger

It is indisputable that active learning -- when students are actively engaged in the instructional event -- improves learning. However, it is not well-understood which types of active learning approaches better potentiate generalization. We compared the exam performance of over 100 undergraduate students enrolled in Social Psychology following one of two different types of active learning assignments. In one version students read text describing experimental evidence for the principle being studied and answered practice questions (practice testing condition). In the other version, students instead created a hypothesis and explanation, and then studied and explained the results (Predict-Observe-Explain condition). The content was matched across conditions. Students performed better in exams requiring generalization to novel situations after providing hypotheses and explanations than after reading the text and answering questions about it. These results suggest that prediction and explanation cycles might be a better active learning approach to promote generalization and transfer than practice questions.

Paulo Carvalho, Psychology DC

Kody Manke, Psychology DC

Ken Koedinger, Psychology DC