Tutored Problem Solving vs. “Pure” Worked Examples

Tutored Problem Solving vs. “Pure” Worked Examples Ryung S. Kim (rkim@wpi.edu) Department of Mathematical Sciences, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road Worcester, MA 01609 USA Rob Weitz (weitzrob@shu.edu) Department of Computing and Decision Sciences, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 07079 Neil T. Heffernan (nth@wpi.edu) Department of Computer Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Nathan Krach (nkrach@wpi.edu) Department of Computer Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute opposed to TPS remediation, which appears to be the case in previous studies). Also, in this study neither condition included a self-explanation component. In other words, the WE condition was a “passive instructional event” (Koedinger and Aleven 2007). Second we examined the effect of prior knowledge in the subject area as a mediating factor. Third we investigated how well a student’s preference for a particular form of instruction predicted which approach was actually superior for that student in terms of learning outcomes. The area of instruction was college-level introductory statistics. Problem solutions generally required multiple steps. The domain is naturally suited to both procedural and conceptual problems. We conducted two experiments; the first focused on the application of the binomial and Normal probability distributions and the second dealt with confidence intervals. Abstract At present a handful of comparisons have been made of different variants of worked examples and tutored problem solving. There is some evidence to report a benefit of adding worked examples (WE) to current tutored problem solving (TPS) environments. Our research investigated how a “pure” WE condition could compete with a TPS condition. By pure we mean the WE condition does not include tutoring, a self-explanation component, or fading. We report on two experiments. We showed statistically significant evidence of learning benefits, both in terms of amount learned and rate of learning, from assigning WE to conceptual problems and TPS to procedural problems. Higher prior knowledge students tended to learn more with WE, and those with low knowledge tended to learn more with TPS, but these results were not significant. We found no statistically significant interaction between student preferences for one approach or the other and their performance. These results have important practical ramifications and raise interesting questions regarding the nature of student learning. Simple Problem Solving vs. Worked Examples A number of studies have shown the benefits of learning from WE. Ward and Sweller (1990) and Sweller and Cooper (1985) compared simple problem solving with a condition alternating WE with problem solving. Atkinson, Derry, Renkl, Wortham (2000) provides a comprehensive review of the WE (vs. simple problem solving) literature with a focus on how best to design WE. One of their overarching conclusions (p. 197) is that “students who self-explain tend to outperform student who do not.” Renkl, Atkinson and Maier (2000) and Renkl, Atkinson, Maier, & Staley (2002) explored the effectiveness of fading (successively removing worked- out solution steps) WE vs. traditional WE. Atkinson, Renkl and Merrill (2003) combined fading with prompts “designed to encourage learners to identify the underlying principle illustrated in each worked-out solution step.” They reported improved far transfer over WE with fading alone. Keywords: tutored problem solving, worked examples. Introduction This study compares student learning using two approaches: tutored problem solving (TPS) and worked examples (WE). We measured how much each student learned as well as the time spent they spent in each condition. The study included both procedural and conceptual problems. This research is relevant to those working in instructional technology and to anyone interested in the nature of student learning. Certainly, from a practical perspective if learning under worked examples can be comparable or better than tutored problem solving, then we can save the significantly more time, money and effort on building tutors. There is a long history of research in TPS and WE separately, and very little research comparing the two. Our work contributes in three ways. First we compare “pure” TPS with “pure” WE conditions. Students in the TPS condition received TPS remediation, while students in the WE condition received solely WE remediation (as Intelligent Tutoring vs. Worked Examples Koedinger and Aleven (2007) review the literature regarding adding worked examples to cognitive tutors.