Using prequestions to enhance learning from reading passages: the roles of question type and structure building ability.

Answering questions before learning something ("prequestions") enhances learning. However, these benefits usually occur for information that was asked in the prequestions (i.e. prequestioned material), and not for non-prequestioned material. We reasoned that this narrow benefit may be due to the fact that studies typically use fairly simple prequestions that have a clear answer within one part of the learning material - isolative prequestions. We explored the effects of integrative prequestions that required participants to make connections across different parts of a reading passage. Experiment 1 showed the usual benefit of isolative prequestions on prequestioned but not on non-prequestioned material, but no benefit of integrative prequestions. However, in Experiment 2 when participants were given instructions to seek the answers while reading, integrative prequestions benefited learning of both prequestioned and non-prequestioned material. Individual differences in structure building positively predicted performance, but did not interact with the effects of prequestions.

Would disfluency by any other name still be disfluent? Examining the disfluency effect with cursive handwriting.

When exposed to words presented under perceptually disfluent conditions (e.g., words written in Haettenschweiler font), participants have difficulty initially recognizing the words. Those same words, though, may be better remembered later than words presented in standard type font. This counterintuitive finding is referred to as the disfluency effect. Evidence for this disfluency effect, however, has been mixed, suggesting possible moderating factors. Using a recognition memory task, level of disfluency was examined as a moderating factor across three experiments using a novel cursive manipulation that varied on degree of legibility (easy-to-read cursive vs. hard-to-read cursive). In addition, list type and retention interval between study and test were manipulated. Across all three experiments, cursive words engendered better memory than type-print words. This memory effect persisted across varied list designs (blocked vs. mixed) and a longer (24-hour) retention interval. A small-scale meta-analysis across the three experiments suggested that the cursive disfluency effect is moderated by level of disfluency: easy-to-read cursive words tended to be better remembered than hard-to-read cursive words. Taken together, these results challenge extant accounts of the disfluency effect. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Hypercorrection of high-confidence errors in the classroom.

People often have erroneous knowledge about the world that is firmly entrenched in memory and endorsed with high confidence. Although strong errors in memory would seem difficult to "un-learn," evidence suggests that errors are more likely to be corrected through feedback when they are originally endorsed with high confidence compared to low confidence. This hypercorrection effect has been predominantly studied in laboratory settings with general knowledge (i.e., trivia) questions, however, and has not been systematically explored in authentic classroom contexts. In the current study, college students in an introductory horticulture class answered questions about the course content, rated their confidence in their answers, received feedback of the correct answers, and then later completed a posttest. Results revealed a significant hypercorrection effect, along with a tendency for students with higher prior knowledge of the material to express higher confidence in, and in turn more effective correction of, their error responses.

Study strategies and beliefs about learning as a function of academic achievement and achievement goals.

Prior research by Hartwig and Dunlosky [(2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126-134] has demonstrated that beliefs about learning and study strategies endorsed by students are related to academic achievement: higher performing students tend to choose more effective study strategies and are more aware of the benefits of self-testing. We examined whether students' achievement goals, independent of academic achievement, predicted beliefs about learning and endorsement of study strategies. We administered Hartwig and Dunlosky's survey, along with the Achievement Goals Questionnaire [Elliot, A. J., & McGregor, H. A. (2001). A 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 80, 501-519] to a large undergraduate biology course. Similar to results by Hartwig and Dunlosky, we found that high-performing students (relative to low-performing students) were more likely to endorse self-testing, less likely to cram, and more likely to plan a study schedule ahead of time. Independent of achievement, however, achievement goals were stronger predictors of certain study behaviours. In particular, avoidance goals (e.g., fear of failure) coincided with increased use of cramming and the tendency to be driven by impending deadlines. Results suggest that individual differences in student achievement, as well as the underlying reasons for achievement, are important predictors of students' approaches to studying.

Does the benefit of testing depend on lag, and if so, why? Evaluating the elaborative retrieval hypothesis.

Despite the voluminous literatures on testing effects and lag effects, surprisingly few studies have examined whether testing and lag effects interact, and no prior research has directly investigated why this might be the case. To this end, in the present research we evaluated the elaborative retrieval hypothesis (ERH) as a possible explanation for why testing effects depend on lag. Elaborative retrieval involves the activation of cue-related information during the long-term memory search for the target. If the target is successfully retrieved, this additional information is encoded with the cue-target pair to yield a more elaborated memory trace that enhances target access on a later memory test. The ERH states that the degree of elaborative retrieval during practice is greater when testing takes place after a long rather than a short lag (whereas elaborative retrieval during restudy is minimal at either lag). Across two experiments, final-test performance was greater following practice testing than following restudy only, and this memorial advantage was greater with long-lag than with short-lag practice. The final test also included novel cue conditions used to diagnose the degree of elaborative retrieval during practice. The overall pattern of performance in these conditions provided consistent evidence for the ERH, with more extensive elaborative retrieval during long- than during short-lag practice testing.

Waiting for feedback helps if you want to know the answer: the role of curiosity in the delay-of-feedback benefit.

When participants answer a test question and then receive feedback of the correct answer, studies have shown that the feedback is more effective when it is delayed by several seconds rather than provided immediately (e.g., Brackbill & Kappy, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 55, 14-18, 1962; Schroth, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 17, 78-82, 1992). Despite several demonstrations of this delay-of-feedback benefit, a theoretical explanation for this finding has not yet been developed. The present study tested the hypothesis that brief delays of feedback are beneficial because they encourage anticipation of the upcoming feedback. In Experiment 1, participants answered obscure trivia questions, and before receiving the answer, they rated their curiosity to know the answer. The answer was then provided either immediately or after a 4-s delay. A later final test over the same questions revealed a significant delay-of-feedback benefit, but only for items that had been rated high in curiosity. Experiment 2 replicated this same effect and showed that the delay-of-feedback benefit only occurs when feedback is provided after a variable, unpredictable time duration (either 2, 4, or 8 s) rather than after a constant duration (always 4 s). These findings demonstrate that the delay-of-feedback effect appears to be greatest under conditions in which participants are curious to know the answer and when the answer is provided after an unpredictable time interval.

The effects of interleaving versus blocking on foreign language pronunciation learning.

Many studies have shown that students learn better when they are given repeated exposures to different concepts in a way that is shuffled or interleaved, rather than blocked (e.g., Rohrer Educational Psychology Review, 24, 355-367, 2012). The present study explored the effects of interleaving versus blocking on learning French pronunciations. Native English speakers learned several French words that conformed to specific pronunciation rules (e.g., the long "o" sound formed by the letter combination "eau," as in bateau), and these rules were presented either in blocked fashion (bateau, carreau, fardeau . . . mouton, genou, verrou . . . tandis, verglas, admis) or in interleaved fashion (bateau, mouton, tandis, carreau, genou, verglas . . .). Blocking versus interleaving was manipulated within subjects (Experiments 1-3) or between subjects (Experiment 4), and participants' pronunciation proficiency was later tested through multiple-choice tests (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) or a recall test (Experiment 3). In all experiments, blocking benefited the learning of pronunciations more than did interleaving, and this was true whether participants learned only 4 words per rule (Experiments 1-3) or 15 words per rule (Experiment 4). Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Broader benefits of the pretesting effect: Placement matters.

Taking a test before learning new information in a lesson improves memory for that information - pretesting effect. Although the specific memory benefit of a pretest on pretested information has been well documented, it remains unclear what the circumstances necessary for the broader memory benefit are - that is, the benefit of a pretest on memory of information in the lesson that was not pretested. Sometimes this broader benefit is present, but other times it disappears or reverses. We investigated if manipulating where the non-pretested information appears in a lesson - either before or after the pretested information - affects broader memory benefits. Participants read a text passage (Experiment 1) or watched a video lecture (Experiment 2) after completing a pretest on half of the lesson content. The pretested information appeared either at the beginning (prior to the non-pretested information) or at the end (after the non-pretested information) of the lesson. The final test assessed memory of both pretested and non-pretested information. We hypothesized that pretests trigger an attentional window that opens during the lesson and closes after pretested information has been identified. Any information, including non-pretested information, will benefit from being in this window because it is more likely to be processed. We found that memory of non-pretested information is better if the non-pretested information is presented at the beginning versus at the end of a lesson, regardless of delivery modality. These results indicate that the presentation order of pretested versus non-pretested information contributes to the broader memory benefits associated with pretesting.

The effects of retrieval versus study on analogical problem solving.

We report four experiments, wherein subjects engaged in either problem-solving practice or example study. First, subjects studied an example problem. Subjects in the example study condition then studied two more analogous problems, whereas subjects in the problem-solving practice conditions solved two such problems, each followed by correct-answer feedback. In Experiment 1, subjects returned 1 week later and completed a posttest on an analogous problem; in Experiments 2-4, subjects completed this posttest immediately after the learning phase. Additionally, Experiment 3 consisted of a control condition, wherein subjects solved these same problems, but did not receive feedback. Experiments 3 and 4 also included a mixed study condition, wherein subjects studied two examples and then solved one with feedback during the learning phase. Across four experiments, we found that the training conditions (i.e., problem-solving practice, mixed, and example study) performed equally well on the posttest. Moreover, subjects in the training conditions outperformed control subjects on the posttest, indicating that the null findings were due to the training conditions learning and transferring their knowledge equally well. After the posttest in Experiment 4, subjects were asked to solve repeated problems from the learning phase. Subjects in the problem-solving practice and mixed study conditions performed better on repeated problems than subjects in the example study condition, indicating that they better learned the solution strategies for these problems than subjects in the example study condition. Nevertheless, this benefit was insufficient to produce differential transfer of learning among the training conditions on the posttest.

The rich-get-richer effect: Prior knowledge predicts new learning of domain-relevant information.

When learning new information, students' prior knowledge related to that information will often vary. Prior research has not systematically explored how prior knowledge relates to learning of new, previously unknown information. Accordingly, the goal of the present research was to explore this relationship. In three experiments, students first completed a prior knowledge test over two domains (football and cooking) and then learned new information from these domains by answering questions and receiving feedback. Students also made a judgment of learning for each. To ensure that the learning was new (i.e., previously unknown) for all students, the to-be-learned information was false. Last, students completed a final test over the same questions from the learning phase. Prior knowledge in each domain was positively related to new learning for items from that domain but not from the other domain. Thus, the relationship between prior knowledge and new learning was domain specific, which we refer to as the rich-get-richer effect. Prior knowledge was also positively related to the magnitude of judgments of learning. In Experiment 3, to explore a potential reason why prior knowledge is related to new learning, students rated their curiosity in learning each item prior to receiving feedback. Critically, students' curiosity judgments mediated the relationship between prior knowledge and new learning. These outcomes suggest that for high-knowledge learners, curiosity may be related to attention-based mechanisms that increase the effectiveness of encoding during feedback. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Delaying feedback by three seconds benefits retention of face-name pairs: the role of active anticipatory processing.

In three experiments, we used face-name learning to examine the puzzling feedback delay benefit--the tendency for feedback to be more effective when it is delayed rather than presented immediately. In Experiment 1, we found that feedback presented after a 3-s blank screen was more effective than feedback presented immediately, even after controlling for the exposure time to the material. In Experiment 2, we replicated the benefit of a feedback delay even when participants were given extra time to view the feedback or to try to retrieve the answer, indicating that this benefit is specific to a delay before feedback. Finally, in Experiment 3, we showed that the 3-s delay is beneficial only if it involves a blank screen, not if the delay is filled with an unrelated distracter task. These results suggest that the feedback delay benefit in this paradigm could arise from an active anticipatory process that occurs during the delay.

The effects of immediate versus delayed feedback on complex concept learning.

We report three experiments that examine whether immediate versus delayed feedback produce differential concept learning. Subjects were shown hypothetical experiment scenarios and were asked to determine whether each was a true experiment. Correct-answer feedback was used for all three experiments; Experiments 2 and 3 also included detailed explanations. In all three experiments, subjects who received immediate feedback were shown the correct answer after each response. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects in the delayed feedback condition were shown feedback after responding to all of the scenarios. All subjects then completed a posttest with novel scenarios. Experiment 3 was three parts (each session was 2 days apart). Subjects in the immediate feedback condition completed the posttest on the second session; subjects in the delayed feedback condition were given feedback on the second session and completed the posttest on the third session. Although no posttest differences were observed between the feedback conditions in Experiments 1 and 2, a delayed feedback advantage was found in Experiment 3. We propose that longer intervals in delayed feedback (relative to shorter intervals) might allow learners to forget the incorrect hypotheses they form during learning, which might thereby enhance the processing of feedback.

Facilitating transfer through incorrect examples and explanatory feedback.

This article examines whether studying correct versus incorrect examples produces differential learning. A prediction that follows from behaviourism is that learning should be best from studying correct examples. A contrasting prediction is that incorrect examples can highlight a concept's properties that are missing in the example, and thereby enable concept learning. We test these ideas across two experiments, wherein subjects were shown hypothetical study scenarios and were asked to determine whether each was a true experiment. In Experiment 1, some subjects were only presented correct examples, some were only presented incorrect examples, and others were presented both. In addition, example type was crossed with feedback type: Some subjects were given explanatory feedback and some were not given any feedback; a control condition was also included, wherein subjects were not shown any study scenarios. All subjects completed a posttest involving novel scenarios; some questions asked subjects to indicate whether they were true experiments (classification questions), and some asked them to specify what was lacking in the design or to indicate how it could be fixed (application questions). Experiment 2 used a similar design, but compared explanatory feedback with corrective feedback. In both experiments, as long as some form of feedback was provided, subjects in the mixed example condition achieved the best classification performance. Furthermore, subjects in the incorrect and mixed example conditions performed best on application questions, particularly when explanatory feedback was provided. These findings offer insights into the mechanisms that might underlie learning from incorrect examples.

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Evaluating contributions of fluency and analytic processing in metacognitive judgements for pictures in foreign language vocabulary learning.

Previous research shows that participants are overconfident in their ability to learn foreign language vocabulary from pictures compared with English translations. The current study explored whether this tendency is due to processing fluency or beliefs about learning. Using self-paced study of Swahili words paired with either picture cues or English translation cues, picture cues garnered higher confidence judgements but not faster study times, and this was true whether judgements of learning were made after a delay (Experiment 1) or immediately (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, when participants learned Swahili words with only one type of cue (pictures or English translations) and then estimated which one would be more effective for learning, the majority of participants believed pictures would be more effective regardless of whether they had experienced those cues during learning. Experiment 4 showed the same results when participants had experienced neither type of cue during a learning phase. These results suggest that metacognitive judgements in foreign language vocabulary learning are driven more by students' beliefs about learning than by processing fluency as reflected in self-paced study times.

Prequestions enhance learning, but only when they are remembered.

Answering prequestions benefits learning, but this benefit is mostly specific to material that was relevant to the prequestions (prequestioned material) and does not extend to other, nonprequestioned material. The current study examined whether this specific benefit is due to selective processing of prequestioned information during a learning experience. In 4 experiments, participants were assigned to a prequestion group or control group before viewing a 30-min video lecture. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to take notes on information they thought was important during the video; in Experiment 3, the prequestion group was instructed to write down the answers to the prequestions; and in Experiment 4, the prequestion group was given the prequestions and instructed to answer them while viewing the video. On a later posttest in all experiments, the prequestion group outperformed the control group, but only for prequestioned material. Further, this benefit only occurred when the prequestion group successfully discovered the answers to the prequestions during the video by writing them down (Experiments 2 and 3) or circling them (Experiment 4). These results suggest that prequestion benefits depend on the degree to which participants can successfully notice and discover the answers to the prequestioned material during a video lecture. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of lecture fluency and instructor experience on students' judgments of learning, test scores, and evaluations of instructors.

Students' judgments of learning (JOLs) are often driven by cues that are not diagnostic of actual learning. One powerful cue that can mislead JOLs is lecture fluency-the degree to which an instructor delivers a smooth, confident, and well-polished lecture. Lecture fluency often inflates JOLs, but has no effect on actual learning. The limited research so far, however, has not systematically explored the role of instructor experience, which may moderate the effects of lecture fluency. In two experiments, students viewed a video-recorded lecture of a fluent or disfluent lecture, and beforehand were informed that the instructor was experienced or inexperienced. Afterward, students made a JOL estimating how much they had learned, answered several evaluation questions, and took a test. Significant effects of lecture fluency, but not instructor experience, occurred whereby lecture fluency inflated JOLs but not test scores. As well, students more often based their JOLs on lecture fluency than instructor experience. The fluent lecture received more favorable evaluations than the disfluent lecture, including students' increased interest in the material and willingness to attend class, suggesting that fluent instruction might benefit learning in indirect ways that are not reflected in test scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The effects of prequestions on classroom learning.

Studies have shown that prequestions-asking students questions before they learn something-benefit memory retention. Prequestions would seem to be a useful technique for enhancing students' learning in their courses, but classroom investigations of prequestions have been sparse. In the current study, students from an introductory psychology course were randomly assigned to receive prequestions over each upcoming lesson (prequestion group) or to not receive prequestions (control group). At the end of class, students in the prequestion group remembered the material better than students in the control group, but this benefit was specific to the information that was asked about in the prequestions. When memory for other, nonprequestioned portions of the lesson were tested at the end of class, the prequestion group performed similarly to the control group. On a follow-up quiz 1 week later, both groups showed a memory advantage for material that was tested at the end of class 1 week prior, compared with information from the same lesson that was never tested. However, this benefit was comparable between the prequestion group and the control group, suggesting that students benefit from retrieval practice, but prequestions add little, if any, enhancement to this effect. (PsycINFO Database Record

Testing beyond words: using tests to enhance visuospatial map learning.

Psychological research shows that learning can be powerfully enhanced through testing, but this finding has so far been confined to memory tasks requiring verbal responses. We explored whether testing can enhance learning of visuospatial information in maps. Fifty subjects each studied two maps, one through conventional study, and the other through computer-prompted tests. For the tests, the subjects were repeatedly presented with the same map with one feature deleted (e.g., a road or a river), and they tried to covertly recall the missing feature and its location. Subjects' map drawings after 30 min were significantly better for maps learned through tests in comparison with maps learned through the same amount of time devoted to conventional study. These results suggest that the testing effect is not limited to the types of memory that require discrete, verbal responses, and that utilizing covert retrievals may allow the effect to be extended to a variety of complex, nonverbal learning tasks.

Enhancing learning and retarding forgetting: choices and consequences.

Our research on learning enhancement has been focusing on the consequences for learning and forgetting of some of the more obvious and concrete choices that arise in instruction, including questions such as these: How does spacing of practice affect retention of information over significant retention intervals (up to 1 year)? Do spacing effects generalize beyond recall of verbal materials? Is feedback needed to promote learning, and must it be immediate? Although retrieval practice has been found to enhance learning in comparison with additional study, does it actually reduce the rate of forgetting? Can retrieval practice effects be extended to nonverbal materials? We suggest that as we begin to find answers to these questions, it should become possible for cognitive psychology to offer nonobvious advice that can be applied in a variety of instructional contexts to facilitate learning and reduce forgetting.

Prequestions do not enhance the benefits of retrieval in a STEM classroom.

Answering questions before a learning episode-"prequestions"-can enhance memory for that information. A number of studies have explored this effect in the laboratory; however, few studies have examined prequestions in a classroom setting. In the current study, the effects of prequestions were examined in an undergraduate course in chemical engineering. At the start of several class meetings, students were provided with a prequestion to answer about the upcoming lesson, and then were asked to provide ratings of confidence in their answers, familiarity with the content in the prequestion, and how much of the assigned reading they had completed. At the end of class, students were given the same question again (postquestion), along with a different question from the same lesson (new question). On a quiz at the end of each week, students were given the postquestions and new questions again, in addition to never-before-seen questions (quiz-only questions) from the same lessons. Performance on questions at the end of class revealed no difference in performance for postquestions vs. new questions. Although weekly quiz performance revealed an effect of retrieval practice-superior memory for material tested at the end of class (postquestions and new questions) compared to material not tested (quiz-only questions)-there was no difference in weekly quiz performance on postquestions vs. new questions. These results suggest that retrieval practice is beneficial to learning in the classroom. However, prequestions do not appear to enhance learning, nor to enhance the effects of retrieval practice.