Introducing Desirable Difficulties for Educational Applications in Science

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Introducing Desirable
Difficulties for Educational
Applications
in Science
www.psych.ucla.edu/iddeas

• Robert A. Bjork, Lindsey Richland, Jason Finley,
  and introducing Matt Hays
• UCLA
• Marcia C. Linn, Britte Cheng
• UC Berkeley

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Desirable Difficulties

• Design principles which have been found, in
  laboratory research, to impair performance during
  training but enhance performance at a delay

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IDDEAS Introducing Desirable Difficulties for
Educational Applications in Science

• Broad Goals extend laboratory research on
  learning and memory to classroom environment,
  explore interactions b/w DDs
• Narrower Goal Implement desirable learning
  difficulties in a web-based science module for
  8th graders, with aim of improving effectiveness
  of such modules

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Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE)

• A system/tool for scientific instruction
• Promotes knowledge integration, collaborative
  learning, visible thinking
• Contains modules on a wide variety of topics,
  with options to customize and to create new
  modules
• Plus a useful research tool!

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Interleaving Effect

• Presentation Order Immediate Test Delayed Test
• Blocked - AAAABBBB Better Worse
• Interleaved - ABBABAAB Worse Better

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Theories Explaining Interleaving

• Contextual Interference (Battig, 1972, 1979)
• Reloading/ Reconstruction (e.g. Lee Magill,
  1983, 1985)
• Development of higher order framework/
  Elaboration (Shea Zimny, 1983, 1988)
• Its just the spacing effect

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Generation Background
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Experiment 1

• 2 Sets of Information to be learned in WISE
  module
• Mass of a Planet
• Distance of a Planet from its Sun
• Presentation Order Blocked vs. Interleaved
• MMMMMDDDDD vs. MDDMDMMDMD
• Sentence Completion Read vs. Generate
• Mercurys mass is less than Earths mass. vs.
  Mercurys mass is ___ than Earths mass.

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Post-test, 2 Day Delay

• Simple sentence-completion Information presented
  and re-studied via generation or reading, or only
  presented
• E. g. The amount of heat and light emitted by
  the sun in our solar system has increased by
  ____ since the beginning of earths history.
• Integration questions across mass slides or
  across distance slides
• E. g., Would an object weigh more on the planets
  in our solar system made mostly of gas or made
  mostly of rock? Why?
• Integration questions across mass and distance
  slides
• E. g., Imagine a planet that is smaller than
  Earth and that was located 1.5 AUs from its sun,
  which is the same strength as the Earths sun.
  How would this planets potential for life
  compare to Earths?

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Figure 1. UCLA Study 1 - Interleaving by type of
Posttest Integration Question.

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Figure 2 UCLA Study 1 -Generation effects on
single fact materials
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Motivations for 2nd Study

• More educationally relevant/realistic
• Map onto in-classroom studies (Berkeley)
• Explore interactions b/w generation
  interleaving
• Exploring one explanation for benefits of
  interleaving developing higher-order framework
• Potentially maximizing benefits of interleaving

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Experiment 2

• All interleaved order
• Sentence level generation questions
• E.g., Describe in a sentence how the size of one
  planet's mass can affect another planet.
• Knowledge required for successful generation
• Integration of info within Mass or Distance Only
• Integration of info from both Mass and Distance

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Next Steps, Questions

• Are P1 and P2 Questions easier than P3 Questions?
• Control data for P3.
• What to do about Conditional Data. Few in
  Inter-Generation condition got full credit during
  training, so difficult to look at conditional
  performance.

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Next Steps

• Material w/ more Contextual Interference?
• Interleaving Habitability Detectability
• Generating irrelevant yet correct info?