Fading instructional scripts: preventing relapses into novice strategies by distributed monitoring

During the fading of instructional scripts learners might relapse into their initial novice strategies after script prompts are withdrawn. One possibility to overcome this problem could be a learning partner providing distributed monitoring of the performance of the strategy suggested by the script. In a 2-factorial experiment with the factors fading and distributed monitoring that involved 126 students of educational science we investigated whether during the fading of an instructional script there is a moderating effect of distributed monitoring on the performance of the strategy and thereby on the acquisition of the cognitive skill of argumentation. Strategy knowledge was fostered best by the combination of fading and distributed monitoring. Distributed monitoring also kept the performance of some aspects of the strategy at higher levels during fading, which was positively related to the acquisition of strategy knowledge.